Conclusion
These findings suggest that prenatal anxiety is associated with low
birthweight and short gestational age. This association was robust
following consideration of controlling for shared family confounding,
and exposure to alcohol and smoking during pregnancy. It is therefore
important to consider maternal mental health during pregnancy, as these
women may need extra psychological attention and support during prenatal
care.
Conflict of Interest
Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of
any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a
potential conflict of interest. The authors declare that they have no
conflict of interest.
The Author Contributions: MB developed the research question
and prepared the first draft of the manuscript together with SO, YL, REB
and PM. MB have been the main author of all sections of the paper, while
REB has written the introduction. YL has conducted all analyses together
with SO. All authors has contributed to the interpretation of the data
and analyses for the work, and all authors revised the manuscript
critically and approved the version to be published.
Ethical approval: The MoBa have approval from the committee for
medical research ethics in 2009 (REK- 2009/1899-7), and
12th of October, 2016 (REK-2016/1424).
Funding : The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study is
supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Health. This work was partly
supported by the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of
Excellence funding scheme, project number 262700, and was also supported
by the Research Council of Norway, NRC, grant nr 288083.
References
1. Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS)
(2007). Identifying the environmental causes of disease: how
should we decide what to believe and when to take action? London:
Academy of Medical Sciences.
2. Andersson, L., Sundström-Poromaa, I., Bixo, M., Wulff, M., Bondestam,
K., & Åström, M. (2003). Point prevalence of psychiatric disorders
during the second trimester of pregnancy: a population-based study.Am J Obstet Gynecol, 189 (1), 148-154.
3. Berle, J., Mykletun, A., Daltveit, A. K., Rasmussen, S., Holsten, F.,
& Dahl, A. A. (2005). Neonatal outcomes in offspring of women with
anxiety and depression during pregnancy. Arch Womens Ment Health,
8 (3), 181-189.
4. Accortt, E. E., Cheadle, A. C., & Schetter, C. D. (2015). Prenatal
depression and adverse birth outcomes: an updated systematic review.Matern Child Health J, 19 (6), 1306-1337.
5. Ding, X.-X., Wu, Y.-L., Xu, S.-J., Zhu, R.-P., Jia, X.-M., Zhang,
S.-F., . . . Tao, F.-B. (2014). Maternal anxiety during pregnancy and
adverse birth outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of
prospective cohort studies. J Affective Disorders, 159 , 103-110.
6. Loomans, E. M., Van Dijk, A. E., Vrijkotte, T. G., Van Eijsden, M.,
Stronks, K., Gemke, R. J., & Van den Bergh, B. R. (2012). Psychosocial
stress during pregnancy is related to adverse birth outcomes: results
from a large multi-ethnic community-based birth cohort. Eur J
Environ Public Health, 23 (3), 485-491.
7. Nasreen, H. E., Kabir, Z. N., Forsell, Y., & Edhborg, M. (2010). Low
birth weight in offspring of women with depressive and anxiety symptoms
during pregnancy: results from a population based study in Bangladesh.BMC Public Health, 10 (1), 515.
8.Sanchez, S. E., Puente, G. C., Atencio, G., Qiu, C., Yanez, D.,
Gelaye, B., & Williams, M. A. (2013). Risk of spontaneous preterm birth
in relation to maternal depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms. J
Reprod Med, 58 , 25.
9. Lewis, S.J., Relton, C., Zammit, S. and Smith, G.D. (2013),
Approaches for strengthening causal inference regarding prenatal risk
factors for childhood behavioural and psychiatric disorders. J
Child Psychol Psychiatry, 54 : 1095-1108.
doi:10.1111/jcpp.12127
10. Smith, G. D. (2008). Assessing intrauterine influences on offspring
health outcomes: can epidemiological studies yield robust findings?Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol, 102 (2), 245-256.
11. D’onofrio, B. M., Lahey, B. B., Turkheimer, E., & Lichtenstein, P.
(2013). Critical need for family-based, quasi-experimental designs in
integrating genetic and social science research. Am J Public
Health, 103 (S1), S46-S55.
12. Magnus, P., Birke, C., Vejrup, K., Haugan, A., Alsaker, E.,
Daltveit, A. K., . . . Knudsen, G. P. (2016). Cohort Profile Update: The
Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Int J Epidemiol ,
45 (2)382-8. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyw02.
13. Tambs, K., & Moum, T. (1993). How well can a few questionnaire
items indicate anxiety and depression? Acta Psychiatr Scand,
87 (5), 364-367.
14. Lahey, B. B., & D’Onofrio, B. M. (2010). All in the Family:
Comparing Siblings to Test Causal Hypotheses Regarding Environmental
Influences on Behavior. Curr Dir Psychol Sci , 19 (5),
319–323. doi:10.1177/0963721410383977
15. Kendler KS. Causal Inference in Psychiatric Epidemiology. JAMA
Psychiatry . 2017;74(6):561–562. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.0502
16. Sjölander, A. (2016). A cautionary note on the use of attributable
fractions in cohort studies. Stat Methods Med Res, 25 (6),
2434-2443. doi:10.1177/0962280214523953
17. Frisell, T., Oberg, S., Kuja-Halkola, R., & Sjolander, A. (2012).
Sibling comparison designs: bias from non-shared confounders and
measurement error. Epidemiol, 23 (5), 713-720.
doi:10.1097/EDE.0b013e31825fa230
18. Schlotz, W. Phillips, D. I.W., (2009). Fetal origins of mental
health: Evidence and mechanisms. Brain, Behav Immun , 23 (7).
905-916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2009.02.001.
19. Wojcik, W., Lee, W., Colman, I., Hardy, R., Hotopf, M. (2013).
Foetal origins of depression? A systematic review and meta-analysis of
low birth weight and later depression. Psychol Med , 43, 1-12.
20. Weaver, I.C.G. et al. (2017). Stress and the emerging roles of
chromatin remodeling in signal intergration and stable transmission of
reversible phenotypes. Frontiers in Behav Neurosci, 11. 41 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00041.
21. Coussons-Read, M. E., Lobel, M., Carey, J. C., Kreither, M. O.,
D’Anna, K., Argys, L., … Cole, S. (2012). The occurrence of
preterm delivery is linked to pregnancy-specific distress and elevated
inflammatory markers across gestation. Brain, Behav
Immun , 26 (4), 650–659. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2012.02.009
22. Dunkel Schetter, C., & Tanner, L. (2012). Anxiety, depression and
stress in pregnancy: implications for mothers, children, research, and
practice. Curr Opin Psychiatry 25 (2), 141–148.
doi:10.1097/YCO.0b013e3283503680
23. Wadhwa PD, Entringer S, Buss C, Lu MC. The contribution of maternal
stress to preterm birth: issues and considerations. Clin
Perinatol . 2011;38(3):351–384. doi:10.1016/j.clp.2011.06.007
24. Cohen S, Miller GE, Rabin BS. Psychological stress and antibody
response to immunization: a critical review of the human literature.Psychosom Med . 2001 Jan-Feb; 63(1):7-18.
10.1097/00006842-200101000-00002
27. Madianos PN, Lieff S, Murtha AP, et al. Maternal periodontitis and
prematurity. Part II: Maternal infection and fetal exposure. Ann
Periodontol . 2001;6(1):175-182. doi:10.1902/annals.2001.6.1.175
26. Felitti VJ,Anda RF,Nordenberg D,et al. (1998). Relationship of
childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes
of death in adults: the Adverse Childhood Experiences(ACE) study.Am J Prev Med , 14(4):245-258.doi:10. 1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8
27. Schneiderman, N., Ironson, G., & Siegel, S. D. (2005). Stress and
health: psychological, behavioral, and biological determinants.Annu Rev Clin Psychol , 1 , 607–628.
doi:10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.1.102803.144141
28. Kendler, K. S., Gardner, C. O., Fiske, A., & Gatz, M. (2009). Major
depression and coronary artery disease in the Swedish twin registry:
phenotypic, genetic, and environmental sources of
comorbidity. Arch Gen Psychiatry , 66 (8), 857–863.
doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2009.94
29. Grigoriadis S, Graves S, Peer M, Mamisashvili, MSW, Tomlison
G,……Richter, M. (2018). Maternal anxiety during pregnancy
and association with adverse perinatal outcomes: Systematic review and
meta-analyses. J Clin Psychiatry , 79 (5) 17r12011
30. Wadhwa PD, Sandman CA, Porto M, Dunkel-Schetter C, Garite TJ.
(1993). The association between prenatal stress and infant birth weight
and gestational age at birth: A prospective investigation. Am J
Obstet Gynecol , 169 (4) 858-865.
31. Staneva, A, Bogossian F, Pritchard M, Wittkowski A. (2015). The
effects of maternal depression, anxiety and precieved stress during
pregnancy on preterm birth: A systematic review. Women Birth , 28,
179-93.
30. Psonen, A-K, Lahti M, Kuusinen T, Tuovinen S, Villa P, Hämäläinen
E……..Räikkönen K. (2016). Maternal prenatal positive
affect, depressive and anxiety symptoms and birth outcomes:The PREDO
Study. Plus One , 11(2): e0150058.doi.10.1371/journal.pone.0150058
31. Dayan, J.,, Creveuil, C., Marks, M., Conroy, S., Herlicoviez, M.,
Dreyfus, M., Tordjman, S., (2006). Prenatal depression, prenatal
anxiety, and spontaneous preterm birth: A prospective cohort study among
women with early and regular care. Psychosom Med, 68 (6),
938-946. doi: 10.1097/01.psy.0000244025.20549.bd