title: Effects of Prenatal Social Stress and Maternal Dietary Fatty Acid Ratio on Infant Temperament: Does Race Matter?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Infant temperament predicts a range of developmental and behavioral outcomes throughout childhood. Both maternal fatty acid intake and psychosocial stress exposures during pregnancy may influence infant temperament. Furthermore, maternal race may modify prenatal diet and stress effects. The goals of this study are to examine the joint effects of prenatal diet and stress and the modifying effects of race on infant behavior.
  
  
  METHODS
  Analyses included N=255 mother-infant dyads, primarily minorities (21% Blacks; 42% Hispanics), enrolled in an urban pregnancy cohort. Maternal prenatal stress was indexed by a negative life events (NLEs) score on the Crisis in Family Systems-Revised survey. Prenatal total daily intakes of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) (n3, n6) were estimated from a food frequency questionnaire; n3:n6 ratios were calculated. Mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R), a measure of infant temperament, when the children were 6 months old. Three commonly used dimensions were derived: Orienting & Regulation, Extraversion, and Negative Affectivity. Associations among prenatal stress, maternal n3:n6 ratio, and race/ethnicity on infant temperament, controlling for maternal education and age and child sex, were examined.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among Blacks, prenatal stress effects on infant Orienting & Regulation scores were modified by maternal n3:n6 ratios (p=0.03): As NLEs increased, lower n3:n6 ratios predicted lower infant Orienting & Regulation scores, whereas higher n3:n6 ratios attenuated the effect of prenatal stress. There were no main or interaction effects predicting Extraversion or Negative Affectivity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An optimal PUFA ratio may protect the fetus from stress effects on infant behavior, particularly among Blacks. These findings may have implications for later neurodevelopment and social functioning predicted by early temperamental characteristics.
authors.affiliation: Kravis Children's Hospital, Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Brunst
authors.affiliation: Boston Children's Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Program for Behavioral Science and Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, 300 Longwood Avenue, AT-120.3, Mailstop BCH 3199, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Michelle Bosquet
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Enlow
authors.affiliation: Human Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Agricultural Sciences, Southern Illinois University, 1205 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.
authors.forename: Srimathi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kannan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 1161 21st Avenue, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Kecia N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Carroll
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, 655 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Brent A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Coull
authors.affiliation: Kravis Children's Hospital, Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, USA ; Mindich Child Health and Development Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 1428 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10029, USA.
authors.forename: Rosalind J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Wright
keywords: Ethnicity; Fatty acids; Psychosocial stress; Race; Temperament