Abstract
The study aimed to evaluate the impact of prenatal maternal stress on birth weight using a large cohort of predominantly White women living in an urban area. Women were recruited between 2005 and 2010. Data collection took place between the 24th and the 28th week of gestation. The Measure of Psychological Stress (MSP-9), a validated tool to assess stress symptoms, was used to collect data on prenatal maternal stress (independent variable). Birth weight (dependent variable) was classified as low birth weight (<2,500 g), normal birth weight (2,500-4,000 g), and macrosomia (>4,000 g). Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) were obtained after performing multivariate logistic regressions adjusted for potential cofounders. At the final stage, 5,721 women were included in analysis. When compared with women experiencing low stress, participants with high stress scores were at increased risk of delivering a newborn with low birth weight before adjustment (OR = 2.06, 95% CI [1.04, 4.09]), but after adjustment, only a nonsignificant trend remained. However, women experiencing intermediate and high levels of stress were at increased risk of delivering a newborn with macrosomia, even after adjustment (aOR = 1.23, [1.02, 1.49]) and (aOR = 1.76, [1.11, 2.77]) compared to those who scored low on the psychological stress scale. Women exposed to high psychological stress during the second trimester (24th to 28th weeks) of pregnancy have a 1.8-fold increased risk for delivering a newborn with macrosomia when compared to women exposed to low psychological stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Highlights
MethodsThis study is based on a large prospective cohort on pregnancies complications that includes 7,866 pregnant women recruited at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Quebec-Université Laval from April 2005 to March 2010 (A comprehensive Healthy Pregnancy Initiative from the Institute for Human Development, Child and Youth Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research)
A recent genome-wide association study highlighted maternal genetic effects on the birth weight that are independent of fetal genetics (Beaumont et al, 2018). They have identified variants in the maternal genome that are robustly associated with newborn birth weight (Beaumont et al, 2018).This study aimed to evaluate the impact of prenatal maternal psychological stress on birthweight using a large cohort of predominantly Caucasian women living in an urban area
Newborns over 4,000 g, when compared to babies with normal birth weight, were more likely to be males, to be born from an older mother with a higher body mass index (BMI), and delivered by caesarean section, but less likely to be born from nulliparous, smoking mothers who drank alcohol more than once per week, the percentage of subjects in this latter group was low (1.1% in NBW vs 0.34% in the macrosomia subgroups)
Summary
This study is based on a large prospective cohort on pregnancies complications that includes 7,866 pregnant women recruited at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Quebec-Université Laval from April 2005 to March 2010 (A comprehensive Healthy Pregnancy Initiative from the Institute for Human Development, Child and Youth Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research). Women lost to follow-up or with missing delivery data, as well as women with a multiple pregnancy, were excluded. This left a sample of 7492 women with singleton pregnancy of more than 20 weeks. From this sample, 1771 women were excluded either because of missing data, the psychological stress questionnaire was not completed or the child was born with major congenital anomaly or was stillborn. Participants gave written informed consent and the study was approved by the CHU de Quebec-Université Laval Ethics Review Board (initial approval date: 9 November 2004, Project 5-04-10-01 [95.05.17], SC12-01-159)
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