Prenatal stress: course and interrelation of emotional and physiological stress measures.

BACKGROUND

Prenatal stress is known to be a potential risk factor for cognitive, behavioural and motor development that even last until adolescence. A consensus of how 'prenatal stress' can be measured, in which trimester of pregnancy women should be studied and whether subjective feelings of being stressed are associated with a hormonal response is still lacking. To close this gap, a prospective longitudinal study was conducted in pregnant women.

SAMPLING AND METHODS

108 subjects were asked to fill out questionnaires concerning pregnancy-related anxiety, perceived stress, marital satisfaction, critical life events and to collect salivary cortisol in each trimester of pregnancy.

RESULTS

Fear of giving birth increases until the end of pregnancy, and marital satisfaction is highest at the end of pregnancy. Perceived stress is related to a hormonal response in cortisol only in the first (r = 0.18, p < 0.10) and second (r = 0.18, p < 0.10) trimesters of pregnancy. Critical life events are linked to raised cortisol levels in early pregnancy only (r = 0.28, p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

Prenatal stress can be operationalized by using different subjective as well as physiological stress measures. Only in the first half of pregnancy self-report and physiological stress measures seem to be associated.