Psychological Measures of Prenatal Stress as Predictors of Infant Temperament

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To examine, in a prospective study, whether maternal stress during pregnancy is related to infant temperament.

Method

Self-report data on various aspects of prenatal stress were collected from nulliparous women in early pregnancy. Infant temperament was measured at 3 and 8 months by direct observation and by parent report.

Results

Complete data were available for 170 term-born infants. Pregnancy-specific anxiety explained 3.3% of the variance of attention regulation at 3 months. Perceived stress and pregnancy anxiety taken together explained 5% of the variance of attention regulation at 8 months. Perceived stress accounted for 8.2% of the variance of difficult behavior of the 3-month-old infant. All results were adjusted for covariates.

Conclusions

Increased maternal prenatal stress seems to be associated with temperamental variation of young infants and may be a risk factor for psychopathology later in life.

Section snippets

Aims of the Study

The present study examined the relation of maternal prenatal stress with infant temperament reported by the mother and on objectively observed behavior in a standard novel situation. In line with the findings of animal studies, we hypothesize that prenatal stress is related to more difficult temperament of the child and to more problematic adaptation to a novel situation. Moreover, we expect prenatally stressed infants to have problems in their attention regulation in a standard novel test

Participants

Nulliparous women with a singleton pregnancy were recruited from referrals to the outpatient clinic of the Department of Obstetrics of the University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU). The clinic is also a first-line referral center where the majority of pregnant women seen carry a low to normal risk status and have their pregnancy supervised by midwives working at the Department of Obstetrics. The UMCU is located outside the city of Utrecht and attracts a mixed rural and urban population of

Descriptive Analyses

Means, standard deviations, and range in scores of the predictors and dependent variables are presented in Table 1. Descriptive information on the subject sample is provided in Table 2.

Stress in Early Pregnancy and Infants’ Observed Behavior

The results are summarized in Table 4. After adjusting for postnatal stress and postnatal depression of the mother, multiple regression showed a linear negative association of pregnancy anxiety in early pregnancy with attention regulation in 3-month-old babies, explaining 3.3% of the total variance (Table 4). At

DISCUSSION

This study showed that various aspects of prenatal maternal stress were associated with the temperament of infants at ages 3 and 8 months. Pregnancy anxiety was related to a decrease in attention regulation during a standard test situation at 3 months, and both pregnancy anxiety and perceived stress were related to a decrease in attention regulation at 8 months. Levels of perceived stress were associated with more problems in adaptation to a new situation, to the presence of unfamiliar persons,

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  • Cited by (0)

    This work was financially supported by the Van der Gaag Stichting and by the Praeventiefonds (28-2685).

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