The Effect of Maternal Stress on Prenatal Development - Research Paper

Introduction

Various research has revealed that maternal stress during and after pregnancy and poor health outcomes and poor birth problems in children are related. In the United States, almost three-quarters of women reported had experience at least one stressful evidence within the 12 months to delivery (Glover, 2015). According to Glover, (2015), stress increases norepinephrine, cortisol, and inflammation that affects the fetal environment and have effects on infant and maternal health. There have been different rates of preterm birth caused by ethnic and socioeconomic disparities, with individuals disadvantaged in both socioeconomic and have minority status having higher stress levels, which cause higher levels of maternal stress.

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The belief that the emotional state of a pregnant mother could affect the unborn child has been in existence for a long time. There have been researches that indicate that maternal stress has both long term and short term effect during the prenatal development. The studies have variances in the results and methodologies where some look at daily hassles, and stressful feelings during pregnancy and others isolate some stressors such as natural disaster (Glover, 2015).

Maternal stress during pregnancy has been associated perinatal effects such as smaller gestation period, smaller birth length and weight, and a higher rate of preterm birth, and increased risk of miscarriage (Van den Bergh et al., 2017). According to Van den Bergh, (2017), the effect on infant outcomes include a lower score on a measure of mental development, problems with attention, and emotional reactivity and temperamental problems and increased fussiness.

Prenatal maternal has been indicated in various research to compromise child development causing social disorders. The situation warrants changing social policies and thinking to deal with maternal stress. Identifying the causal link between mental stress and prenatal child development is critical in advancing biological models and theories to construct intervention that is clear and understands it working. In creating social policies, the makers depend on having a firm grasp of the concept of the causal mechanism, to avoid wasting money on the mis-targeted program (Van den Bergh et al., 2017). Parents should also understand the developments of their children and the risk of prenatal stress. Stress in a pregnant mother can be eased through developing a social framework that will help the parent deal with their anxiety effectively.

The more obvious implication is prevention. Policies that help prevent the adverse impact of the maternal prenatal stress on a child should be put place to promote the well-being of children and women cost-effectively. According to Feinberg, (2016), the various effects of maternal stress such as prematurity and low birthweight come at massive costs, and so far the prevention efforts have not been successful. The possibility of reducing maternal prenatal stress should prompt clinical trials and systematic efforts. It will help identify the best programs to help promote the social life of pregnant women in managing stress and anxieties that will eventually benefit both the child and the mother.

A study that was controlled in nature including 172 and 168 who delivered at term and preterm respectively. The total number of women for the experiment was 340. The data of the research was standardized medical records that were extracted manually (Lilliecreutz et al., 2016). The medical history was studied if the women reported the stressors such as anxiety and depression themselves or a psychiatrist diagnosed them, and if any of the factors are found, the respondent is said to have been subjected to stress during pregnancy. Attributable Risk that maternal stress that a mother experiences during a preterm birth pregnancy was calculated using an adjusted odds ratio (Lilliecreutz et al., 2016). The adjusted odds ratio was calculated for both the whole study population and women who experienced stress during their pregnancy.

Factors such as dietary intake, psychosocial states and nutritional status during pregnancy are crucial to the fetal development and maternal health. According to Britto et al., (2015), a healthcare giver can use a dietary base intervention for pregnant mothers to curb maternal stress-related outcomes. Certain prenatal nutritional supplementation has impacts on psychosocial and maternal biological stress outcomes. This intervention modulates physiological stress responses and maternal stress perceptions during pregnancy. There is also the lipid-based intervention that affects the length of gestation and maternal cortisol that will increase adverse effects on neonatal outcomes.

Another intervention that can be applied to deal with prenatal stress is the use of psychosocial interventions during pregnancy on metabolic or nutrition outcomes. This intervention uses eating that is based on mindfulness with programs that are aimed at reducing stress to gestation weight gain among the overweight and low-income pregnant women (Britto et al., 2017). Women strongly identified with struggles relating to the complex interplay of stress, emotions, behaviors in their lives, and eating, stated concern regarding the influence of their dietary behaviors and stress on health and weight gain of their developing babies. The interventions aim to reduce stress by supporting group to target emotional mechanisms and essential skills of eating during pregnancy.

Reference

Britto, P. R., Lye, S. J., Proulx, K., Yousafzai, A. K., Matthews, S. G., Vaivada, T., ... & MacMillan, H. (2017). Nurturing care: promoting early childhood development. The Lancet, 389(10064), 91-102.

Feinberg, M. E., Jones, D. E., Roettger, M. E., Hostetler, M. L., Sakuma, K. L., Paul, I. M., & Ehrenthal, D. B. (2016). Preventive effects on birth outcomes: buffering impact of maternal stress, depression, and anxiety. Maternal and child health journal, 20(1), 56-65.

Glover, V. (2015). Prenatal stress and its effects on the fetus and the child: possible underlying biological mechanisms. In Perinatal programming of neurodevelopment (pp. 269-283). Springer, New York, NY.

Lilliecreutz, C., Laren, J., Sydsjo, G., & Josefsson, A. (2016). Effect of maternal stress during pregnancy on the risk for preterm birth. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 16(1), 5.

Van den Bergh, B. R., van den Heuvel, M. I., Lahti, M., Braeken, M., de Rooij, S. R., Entringer, S., ... & Schwab, M. (2017). Prenatal developmental origins of behavior and mental health: The influence of maternal stress during pregnancy. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.