Maternal emotional distress in pregnancy and delivery of a small-for-gestational age infant

Abstract

Objective: To assess the association between maternal emotional distress in pregnancy and delivery of a small-for-gestational age offspring.

Design: A cohort study in pregnancy.

Setting: Fifty hospitals with a maternity ward in Norway during 1998-2008.

Population: Seventy-one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight women with a singleton pregnancy in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study were followed from early pregnancy to delivery.

Methods: Information on presence of emotional distress was obtained through self-administered questionnaires in pregnancy weeks 17 and 30 and on birthweight, gestational length at delivery and sex by linkage to the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. Emotional distress was measured by short forms of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25.

Main outcome measure: Small-for-gestational age offspring (birthweight <2.5th percentile).

Results: Being emotionally distressed at gestational weeks 17 and 30 was not significantly associated with subsequent delivery of a small-for-gestational age infant (adjusted odds ratio 1.16; 95% confidence interval 0.87-1.54). This estimate was adjusted for smoking in pregnancy, parity, diabetes, pre-eclampsia, body mass index, education and maternal age.

Conclusions: Emotional distress during pregnancy was not associated with subsequent delivery of a small-for-gestational age infant.