Pregnancy-related Anxiety And Infant Temperament: A Birth Cohort Study

Objective This study aims to examine the association between maternal pregnancy-related anxiety and infant temperament.Methods A total of 4 669 women were surveyed between Oct 2008 and Oct 2010.Self-reported anxiety and depression were assessed at their first visit to maternal health center in a prospective longitudinal study of a community sample of women in China.The questionnaire also included sociodemographic characters, prior pregnancy outcome,pregnancy-induced diseases and the other variables. The data concerning pregnancy outcome were recorded by the women and complemented with information collected from the hospital records.In the period from April 2011 to October 2011, infants were randomly used of infant temperament questionnaire to the temperament evaluation according to pregnant queue code, a total of 2,521 children aged 4 to 30 months of age to complete the temperament evaluation. Using the chi-square test to analysis the relationship between pregnancy pregnancy-related anxiety symptoms, the condition of mother during pregnancy and difficult temperament of infant. The relationship of pregnancy pregnancy-related anxiety and each dimensions of temperament were analyzed with multivariate analysis by non-conditional Logistic regression analysis.Results A total of 4669 single live births entered the maternal follow-up queue, there were 2521 infants who had gained temperament data in the maternal data, including 1395 boys, 1126 girls.The difference of temperament types constitution by different gender was not statistically significant (c2 = 5.965, P> 0.05); The difference of temperament types constitution by different age groups was statistically significant( c 2 = 18.286, P <0.05). The difference of same sex infants’ activity levels,rhythmicity, phobotaxis, persistence and the threshold of response score was significant(P <0.05);The infants from different age groups, the difference of their activity levels, phobotaxis, adaptability,response intensity, mood, dispersed attention and threshold of response was significant(P <0.05).The single factor c 2 analytic result showed that the household, educational level, and pregnancy-related anxiety in the third trimester are risk factors of troublesome temperament type of infant(P <0.05), others were not statistically relevant. Multiple regression analysis showed those statistically significant variables that affect the dimension of infant temperament are maternal education level, maternal age, per capita income of family, household, pregnancy will, maternal smoking history before pregnancy, pregnancy-related anxiety in early pregnancy and third trimester and spontaneous abortion history. The analysis result of the relationship between pregnancy-related anxiety and trouble temperament using multivariate analysis by non-conditional Logistic regression analysis showed that pregnancy-related anxiety in the third trimester affect the troublesome type of infant temperament(P <0.05).Conclusion There are more easy temperament and intermediate temperament near easy of the infant temperament type,part of temperament dimensions in different gender and age are different;multiple factors together affect infant temperament. pregnancy-related anxiety in early pregnancy is not a risk factor of difficult temperament; pregnancy-related anxiety in the third trimester associated with difficult temperament of infant.