Maternal trait anxiety, emotional distress, and salivary cortisol in pregnancy.
Animal models suggest that stress-induced hormonal changes in the mother during pregnancy lead to enduring changes in the fetus and empirical links between prenatal maternal stress and negative child development have been discerned repeatedly in human studies. But the role of heritable personality traits has received little attention in the latter work. The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationship between maternal personality, psychological measures of maternal distress and maternal salivary cortisol during pregnancy. Maternal reports of personality (16 PF) and stress-related psychological measures (depression, pregnancy-related anxiety, perceived stress, negative life events) as well as salivary cortisol samples of 66 healthy pregnant women were collected in early and late pregnancy. Maternal trait anxiety proved related to all stress-related psychological measures and high anxiety predicted low baseline cortisol awakening levels in early pregnancy. Maternal trait anxiety is related to both psychological and biological stress measures during pregnancy.
Pluess
Michael
M
Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birkbeck University of London, United Kingdom.
Bolten
Margarete
M
Pirke
Karl-Martin
KM
Hellhammer
Dirk
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology*; D019540:Area Under Curve; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism*; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011247:Pregnancy / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000523:psychology; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology*; D055815:Young Adult
D006854:Hydrocortisone