Associations Among Prenatal Stress, Maternal Antioxidant Status in Pregnancy, and Child Temperament at Age 30 Months

Background: Few studies have examined the join effects of prenatal stress and low antioxidant on fetal neurodevelopment. Methods: We examined associations among prenatal stress, antioxidant intakes, and child temperament in a pregnancy cohort (n=109 mother-child dyads; 30% Black, 19% Hispanic). In mid-pregnancy, mothers reported recent negative life events on the Crisis in Family Systems-Revised survey. Individual and composite prenatal antioxidant intakes were calculated from a food frequency questionnaire. Negative Affectivity and Extraversion subscales were assessed on the 36-item Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ) at 31.8 +/- 1.7 months. Linear regression was used, adjusting for maternal age, race, and education, and child sex and age. Effect modification by antioxidant status was examined in stratified analyses and with formal tests of interaction. Results: In adjusted analyses, increased maternal prenatal NLEs were associated with higher child negative affectivity (beta=0.10, p=0.01) but not extraversion (beta=0.04, p=0.23) or effortful control (beta=0.01, p=0.70). In stratified models, the association between higher NLEs and negative affectivity was significant among children whose mothers reported low intakes of vitamin A (beta=0.12, p=0.05), vitamin C (beta=0.20, p=0.007), zinc (beta=0.16, p=0.01), and selenium (beta=0.18, p=0.009). In stratified analyses, the association between higher maternal NLEs and increased child extraversion scores was significant in children of mothers with low composite antioxidant scores (pinteraction = 0.013). Discussion: Higher prenatal stress was associated with increased negative affectivity and extraversion in toddlers born to mothers with lower antioxidant intakes.