Resilience as a protective factor in pregnancy and puerperium: Its relationship with the psychological state, and with Hair Cortisol Concentrations

Abstract

Purpose: Stress is considered an important risk factor for the physical and psychological health of pregnant women. Hence, it is very important to study those protective factors that attenuate the negative effects of stress, such as resilience. The objective of this study was to verify the role of resilience as a stress-reducing factor during pregnancy.

Methods: A total of 151 pregnant women were assessed in this study: high resilience (n = 55) and low resilience (n = 96). Assessment consisted on perceived stress, pregnancy-specific stress, psychopathological symptoms, psychological wellbeing and Hair Cortisol Concentrations (HCC) during the third trimester of pregnancy and the puerperium, as well as postpartum depression.

Results: The results show that there were statistically significant differences between women with high and low resilience in: perceived stress [F (1,150) = 8.40; p = .005)], HCC [F (1,150) = 9.70; p = .002], pregnancy-specific stress [F (1,150) = 9.62; p = .002], and various subscales of psychopathological symptoms. Specifically, women with high resilience had lower levels of perceived stress, pregnancy-specific stress, psychopathological symptoms, psychological wellbeing, and Hair Cortisol Concentrations during the third trimester. During the puerperium, women in the high resilience group showed higher psychological wellbeing, lower psychopathological symptoms, and lower postpartum depression scores.

Conclusions: These results highlight the protective role of resilience when pregnant women are confronted by the negative effects of stress, and therefore the potential utility of resilience to improve the health of pregnant women and their neonates.

Keywords: Hair Cortisol Concentrations; Postpartum depression; Psychopathological symptoms; Resilience; Stress.