Abstract
The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to-date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14-week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3-month-old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 136-157 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Infancy |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2023 |
Funding
The PHBP study was generously supported by the Perinatal Origins of Disease (POD): Research at the Maternal-Fetal Interface Strategic Research Initiative by Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Stanley Manne Research Institute. We gratefully acknowledge our PHBP collaborators, John Rogers, Roozbeh Ghaffari, Michael Bass, Erin Ward, Aaron Hamvas, and other members of the POD collaborative for their contributions to this study. We thank Elveena Fareedi and Brianna Sinche for excellent study coordination and Aditi Rangarajan and Peter Cummings for their efforts in data management and participant survey compliance. We thank Hio Wa Mak and Gregory Fosco for their guidance in calculating lability scores. We gratefully acknowledge the families who gave their time and effort to participate in this study. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare with regard to the funding source for this study.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Developmental and Educational Psychology