Psychological response to amniocentesis: I. Mood state and adaptation to pregnancy.

The responses of a group of pregnant women undergoing amniocentesis and control women not having the procedure were studied using objective, self-report measures of mood state, attitudes toward pregnancy, and maternal-fetal attachment. Questionnaires were completed on three occasions: after genetic counseling (time-1), after amniocentesis (time-2), and 1 wk after communication of results (time-3) for amniocentesis subjects, and at comparable points in the pregnancy for control subjects. Amniocentesis and control subjects differed markedly in their pattern of change in anxiety scores over time, with amniocentesis subjects being more anxious than control subjects at time-2 and less anxious at time-3. Results were similar but less pronounced for depression scores, whereas there were smaller differences between groups on measures of anger and confusion. Unusual patterns of mood state changes were seen in the control group, which were related to a history of previous fetal loss. The groups did not differ in their attitudes toward pregnancy, but amniocentesis subjects showed a greater relative increase in attachment to the fetus than did control subjects. Overall, amniocentesis subjects were faring as well or better on every measure taken at time-3 and were showing improvement on all measures. In contrast, control subjects were demonstrating a trend toward increasing mood disturbance. These results suggest that any amniocentesis-related psychological disturbances are only transient and are outweighed by the receipt of normal results, which appear to enhance emotional adaptation to pregnancy.