Maternal stress and pregnancy outcomes: A review of the psychosocial literature

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Abstract
The literature linking maternal psychosocial stress with pregnancy outcomes is reviewed. These published findings, dating back over the past 30 years, tend to conceptualize stress as either life change or anxiety. After a brief conceptual and methodological overview of ‘stress’, empirical research findings are reviewed with pregnancy outcomes grouped into 4 categories: low birth weight, prematurity, antepartum complications, and intrapartum complications. In general, the literature reveals that life change stress is predictive of both prematurity and antepartum complications, and that anxiety is predictive of both antepartum and intrapartum complications, although the intrapartum results are mixed. In sum, there is currently only scattered evidence linking stress to low birth weight. Finally, the implications of these findings for clinical practice and research are discussed.

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