Anxiety, physical abuse, and low birth weight

Physical and sexual abuse has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcome in some studies. One cause may be physical trauma; others may be indirect, such as stress, anxiety, smoking or drug use in pregnancy. The aim of the present study was to assess the relationships among anxiety, history of abuse and low birth weight.

We performed a case control study comprising 85 women who delivered low birth weight (<2500 g) babies (cases) and 92 women with higher birth weight babies (control group). All mothers were interviewed. We assessed the extent of abuse using the Conflict Tactics Scale, and that of anxiety using the Trait-Anxiety Inventory.

Women with low birth weight babies were not more likely to have higher scores on the anxiety scale or to have a history of abuse. On the other hand, mothers with a history of abuse had higher anxiety scores and more often smoked in pregnancy.

Anxiety could be the intermediate factor between abuse and smoking in pregnancy.