Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESPrenatal Exposure to Maternal Depression and Cortisol Influences Infant Temperament
Section snippets
Participants
Participants in this study included 247 women with singleton term pregnancies who were recruited serially between 1999 and 2003 from two obstetric clinics in southern California before 18 weeks of gestation. These subjects were part of a cohort that participated in a larger study from which several papers have been published (Davis et al., 2005, Rini et al., 2006, Sandman et al., 2006), one of which (Davis et al., 2005) evaluated infant outcomes. In this study the effect of prenatal exposure to
Maternal Salivary Cortisol
As illustrated in Figure 2, levels of cortisol increased significantly from time 1: 19 weeks' GA to time 2: 25 weeks' GA (t244 = 3.4, p <.01) and from time 2: 25 weeks' GA to time 3: 31 weeks' GA (t243 = 2.5, p < .001). Furthermore, cortisol levels were higher at all pregnancy time points as compared with postpartum measures (p < .01). Although collection time was constrained, cortisol still was significantly correlated with collection time (r = −0.19 to −0.27; p < .01). Thus, time of sample
DISCUSSION
The data reported here are among the first to examine the joint and independent effects of prenatal maternal psychosocial indices of stress and prenatal maternal cortisol levels on human infant development. Data indicate that maternal cortisol levels during the third trimester of pregnancy predict maternal report of increased negative reactivity (startle or distress in response to novel and surprising stimuli as measured by the fear subscale of the IBQ) during infancy. Furthermore, prenatal
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This research was supported by grants from NIH (HD28413, NS-41298). The authors thank the families who participated in this project.
Disclosure: The authors have no financial interests to disclose.