Maternal psychosocial stress during pregnancy and offspring neurobehavioral outcomes during early childhood in the Healthy Start Study

Abstract

Purpose: We evaluate singular and combined effects of prenatal maternal depression and stress on early childhood neurobehavioral outcomes among 536 mother-child pairs.

Methods: First, we used multivariable linear regression to investigate associations of women's Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) score and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) score, separately, with offspring Child Behavior Checklist score. Next, to assess the combined effect of EPDS and PSS, we dichotomized each score at the fourth versus first to third quartiles and created a four-level variable comprising combinations of high and low depression and stress. Across all models, we accounted for household chaos, hubbub, and order scale (CHAOS) score, an indicator of the household environment associated with offspring behavioral outcomes.

Results: Each one-unit increment in maternal EPDS and PSS scores corresponded with 0.75 (95% CI: 0.53, 0.96) and 0.72 (95% CI: 0.48, 0.95) units higher offspring total problems T-score, respectively. Children of women with high EPDS and PSS had highest T-scores for total problems. All associations remained materially unchanged after adjustment for CHAOS score.

Conclusions: Prenatal maternal depression and stress is associated with worse neurobehavioral outcomes among offspring, with the most unfavorable outcomes among children whose mothers had high scores for both EPDS and PSS.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT002273297.

Keywords: Maternal depression; Offspring neurobehavioral health; Perceived stress; Psychosocial stress.