Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Institute of Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2023 Jul 13;18(7):e0288446. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288446. eCollection 2023.
Food insecurity can be harmful to pregnant women, as pregnancy is a challenging period with increased maternal nutritional requirements to ensure optimal fetal development and health of the mother. Whether food insecurity negatively affects maternal health may depend on how stressful pregnant women perceive this food insecurity to be and how strongly they believe they can cope with it. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), pregnant women from smallholder households suffer from food insecurity due to post-harvest losses (PHL), i.e., loss of crops because of inadequate storage. An agricultural intervention that improves crop storage has been shown to reduce food insecurity. However, it remains to be determined whether this agricultural intervention (treatment) has an additional positive effect on pregnant women's perceived stress levels and coping abilities. This study examines whether pregnant women from treatment households experience lower perceived stress levels and higher perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control housholds.
In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), short message service (SMS)-based mobile phone surveys were conducted to assess the causal effect of a food security intervention (improved on-farm storage of maize) on perceived stress and coping in pregnant women from smallholder households. Pregnant women were identified through these monthly surveys by asking whether someone in their household was currently pregnant. The significant results revealed that pregnant women from treatment households experienced more perceived stress but better perceived coping abilities compared to pregnant women from control households. Uncertainty due to lack of experience, this might have contributed to the higher perceived stress, as the women could not easily judge the benefits and risks of the new storage technology. However, the technology itself is a tangible resource which might have empowered the pregnant women to counteract the effects of PHL and thus food insecurity.
Our findings indicate that pregnant women from treatment households had higher perceived coping abilities but experienced more perceived stress. More research is needed on how this technology impacts maternal mental health in a broader sense and whether biological mechanisms, such as epigenetics, may underlie this association.
粮食不安全会对孕妇造成危害，因为怀孕是一个充满挑战的时期，孕妇需要增加营养摄入，以确保胎儿最佳发育和母亲健康。粮食不安全是否会对产妇健康产生负面影响，可能取决于孕妇对粮食不安全的感知程度以及她们对自身应对能力的信心程度。在撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA），小农户家庭的孕妇由于产后损失（PHL）而面临粮食不安全，即由于储存不当导致作物损失。已证明改善作物储存的农业干预措施可以减少粮食不安全。然而，仍需确定这种农业干预措施（处理）是否对孕妇的感知压力水平和应对能力有额外的积极影响。本研究考察了来自处理家庭的孕妇是否比来自对照家庭的孕妇感知压力水平更低，应对能力更高。
在一项随机对照试验（RCT）中，通过基于短信服务（SMS）的移动电话调查，评估了粮食安全干预措施（改善玉米的农场储存）对小农户家庭孕妇感知压力和应对能力的因果影响。通过每月调查询问家庭中是否有孕妇，确定孕妇的身份。结果表明，与对照家庭的孕妇相比，来自处理家庭的孕妇感知压力更大，但应对能力更强。由于缺乏经验而产生的不确定性可能导致了更高的感知压力，因为女性无法轻易判断新储存技术的利弊。然而，这项技术本身就是一种有形资源，可能使孕妇有能力抵消产后损失和粮食不安全的影响。
我们的研究结果表明，来自处理家庭的孕妇应对能力更强，但感知压力更大。需要进一步研究这项技术如何更广泛地影响产妇心理健康，以及生物学机制（如表观遗传学）是否是这种关联的基础。
