The association between prenatal stress and infant birth weight and gestational age at birth: a prospective investigation
Open accessAbstract
Objective The aim was to test a model of the influence of maternal prenatal psychosocial stress on birth outcomes after controlling for biomedical risk.Study design In a prospective study a sociodemographically homogeneous sample of 90 women was assessed during the third trimester with standard, reliable questionnaires that measured episodic and chronic stress, strain (response to stress), and pregnancy-related anxiety. Birth outcomes included infant birth weight, gestational age at birth, and intrapartum complications. Parity and biomedical (antepartum) risk was also coded. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed after controlling for the effects of biomedical risk factors.Results Independent of biomedical risk, each unit increase of prenatal life event stress (from a possible sample range of 14.7 units) was associated with a 55.03 gm decrease in infant birth weight and with a significant increase in the likelihood of low birth weight (odds ratio 1.32), and each unit increase of prenatal pregnancy anxiety (from a possible sample range of 5 units) was associated with a 3-day decrease in gestational age at birth.Conclusion Independent of biomedical risk, maternal prenatal stress factors are significantly associated with infant birth weight and with gestational age at birth.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Pregnancy anxiety is a more sensitive predictor of birth outcomes than general anxiety.
“Pregnancy anxiety has been suggested to be a more sensitive predictor of birth outcomes than general anxiety (Wadhwa et al., 1993; DiPietro et al., 2004; Roesch et al., 2004; Kramer et al., 2009)”
From High pregnancy anxiety during mid-gestation is associated with decreased gray matter density in 6-9-year-old children. (2010) · cites this paper as Wadhwa et al., 1993
Pregnancy anxiety has higher predictive quality for birth outcomes and fetal/child development than general stress scales.
“This is emphasized by observations of pregnancy anxiety having a higher predictive quality for birth outcomes and fetal/child development than general stress scales (Wadhwa et al., 1993; Huizink et al., 2003; DiPietro et al., 2004; Roesch et al., 2004; Dipietro et al., 2006; Kramer et al., 2009; Davis & Sandman, in press)”
From High pregnancy anxiety during mid-gestation is associated with decreased gray matter density in 6-9-year-old children. (2010) · cites this paper as Wadhwa et al., 1993
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 45 · Cited by 794
- Authors
- Wadhwa, P. D., Sandman, C. A., Porto, M., Dunkel-Schetter, C., & Garite, T. J.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wadhwa, Pathik D.
- Venue
- American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1993-10
- Volume
- 169
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 858-865
- ISSN
- 0002-9378 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2151730966
- Cited by
- 794
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 33
- FWCI
- 7.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- escholarship.org
- Locations
- American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD028413, HD 28413-01A1)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Obstetrics and Gynecology › Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions
- Keywords
- prenatal stress, maternal psychosocial stress, birth weight, low birth weight, gestational age at delivery, pregnancy-related anxiety, life events, stress response, labor complications, biomedical risk factors, parity
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety, Apgar Score, Birth Weight, Female, Gestational Age, Humans, Life Change Events, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Complications, Pregnancy Outcome, Prospective Studies, Regression Analysis, Risk Factors, Stress, Psychological, Multivariate Analysis
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
