Our Knowledge About Prenatal Stress in Shelby County is Incomplete

An ongoing cohort study of Shelby County mothers1 suggests that eight percent of pregnant mothers may regularly experience high levels of prenatal stress, placing their babies, and their early cognitive development at risk. In their third trimester, women in the study completed a six-item questionnaire measuring how much anxiety they had experienced in the previous week.

Despite some research showing that stress is higher among low-income mothers, African-American mothers, and mothers with low education,2 this pattern was not reflected in the current study. For example, 9.5 percent of white mothers reported anxiety in the at-risk range, compared to 6.6 percent of African-American mothers. Moreover, 9.3 percent of mothers with family incomes between $25,000 and $35,000 were at risk, compared to only 6.5 percent of mothers with incomes from $5,000 to $10,000.

Why did the study reveal these unexpected patterns? The research literature suggests at least two possibilities. First, the short anxiety questionnaire measure only recent stress. Group differences are more pronounced when long-term stress is considered. Second, many researchers question the usefulness of self-reported anxiety measures when they are not supplemented with more objective data.3 Additional analyses are necessary for the study to provide an accurate picture of prenatal stress among Shelby County mothers.

References: 

Data provided by University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Department of Preventive Medicine.

Dunkel-Schetter C. Maternal stress and preterm delivery. Prenatal and Neonatal Medicine. 1998; 3: 39-42.

DiPietro JA. The role of maternal prenatal stress in child development. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2004; 13(2): 71-74.