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Updated: Sep 29, 2026

Using a Murine Model of Psychosocial Stress in Pregnancy as a Translationally Relevant Paradigm for Psychiatric Disorders in Mothers and Infants
Published on: June 13, 2021
Psychological measures of prenatal stress as predictors of infant temperament
Anja C Huizink1, Pascale G Robles de Medina, Eduard J H Mulder
1Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Utrecht University Medical Centre, Rudolf Magnus Institute for Neuroscience, The Netherlands. AC.Huizink.Emgo@med.vu.nl
Objective:
To examine, in a prospective study, whether maternal stress during pregnancy is related to infant temperament.
Method:
Self-report data on various aspects of prenatal stress were collected from nulliparous women in early pregnancy. Infant temperament was measured at 3 and 8 months by direct observation and by parent report.
Results:
Complete data were available for 170 term-born infants. Pregnancy-specific anxiety explained 3.3% of the variance of attention regulation at 3 months. Perceived stress and pregnancy anxiety taken together explained 5% of the variance of attention regulation at 8 months. Perceived stress accounted for 8.2% of the variance of difficult behavior of the 3-month-old infant. All results were adjusted for covariates.
Conclusions:
Increased maternal prenatal stress seems to be associated with temperamental variation of young infants and may be a risk factor for psychopathology later in life.
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