Recommendations for Clinical Practice, Research, and Policy to Address the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Anxiety Symptoms in Immigrant and U.S.-Born Latina Mothers

Abstract

More than one-half of pregnant women experience some level of anxiety symptoms (Meades & Ayers, 2011), with 20%–35% of women reporting high anxiety or evidence of an anxiety disorder (Fawcett, Fairbrother, Cox, White, & Fawcett, 2019; Koelewijn, Sluijs, & Vrijkotte, 2017; Nakić Radoš, Tadinac, & Herman, 2018). Experiencing anxiety during pregnancy is associated with pregnancy complications (Kurki, Hiilesmaa, Raitasalo, Mattila, & Ylikorkala, 2000; Tomfohr-Madsen et al., 2019), postnatal depressive symptoms (Coelho, Murray, Royal-Lawson, & Cooper, 2011), adverse fetal and neonatal development—including preterm birth, low birth weight (Rondó et al., 2003; Rose, Pana, & Premji, 2016; Uguz, Yakut, Aydogan, Bayman, & Gezginc, 2019), and impaired fetal growth (Henrichs et al., 2010)—and longer term adverse developmental outcomes (Irwin, Davis, Hobel, Coussons-Read, & Schetter, 2020).