Reissland Nadja, Aydin Ezra, Francis Brian, Exley Kendra
a Department of Psychology , Durham University , Durham , UK.
Laterality. 2015;20(1):82-94. doi: 10.1080/1357650X.2014.920339. Epub 2014 Jun 3.
This longitudinal observational study investigated whether foetuses change their hand preference with gestational age, and also examined the effects of maternal stress on lateralized foetal self-touch. Following ethical approval, fifteen healthy foetuses (eight girls and seven boys) were scanned four times from 24 to 36 weeks gestation. Self-touch behaviours which resulted in a touch of the foetal face/head were coded in 60 scans for 10 min and analysed in terms of frequency of the foetuses using left and right hands to touch their face. The joint effects of foetal age, stress and sex on laterality were assessed. We modelled the proportion of right self-touches for each foetal scan using a generalized linear mixed model, taking account of the repeated measures design. There was substantial variability in hand preference between foetuses. However, there was no significant increase in the proportion of right-handed touches with foetal age. No sex differences in handedness were identified. However, maternally reported stress level was significantly positively related to foetal left-handed self-touches (odds ratio 0.915; p < .0001). This longitudinal study provides important new insights into the effect of recent maternal stress on foetal predominant hand use during self-touch.
这项纵向观察性研究调查了胎儿是否会随着胎龄改变其用手偏好，还研究了母亲压力对胎儿偏向性自我触摸的影响。在获得伦理批准后，对15名健康胎儿（8名女孩和7名男孩）在妊娠24至36周期间进行了4次扫描。在60次扫描中，对导致胎儿触摸自己脸部/头部的自我触摸行为进行编码，每次扫描时长10分钟，并分析胎儿使用左手和右手触摸脸部的频率。评估了胎龄、压力和性别对偏侧性的联合影响。我们使用广义线性混合模型对每次胎儿扫描的右侧自我触摸比例进行建模，同时考虑到重复测量设计。胎儿之间的用手偏好存在很大差异。然而，随着胎龄的增加，右侧触摸的比例没有显著增加。未发现用手习惯上的性别差异。然而，母亲报告的压力水平与胎儿左手自我触摸显著正相关（优势比0.915；p < .0001）。这项纵向研究为近期母亲压力对胎儿自我触摸时主要用手习惯的影响提供了重要的新见解。
