Preconception stress and the secondary sex ratio in a population-based preconception cohort
Jisuk Bae1, Courtney D Lynch2, Sungduk Kim3
1Department of Preventive Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu School of Medicine, Daegu, South Korea; Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Maryland.
Objective:
To examine the association between preconception parental stress and the secondary sex ratio, defined as the ratio of males to females at birth.
Design:
A population-based preconception cohort.
Setting:
Not applicable.
Patient(S):
A total of 235 couples who were enrolled before conception in Michigan and Texas between 2005 and 2009 and who had a singleton birth during the follow-up period. Couples were interviewed separately at baseline to obtain information on perceived stress (Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale) and lifetime history of physician-diagnosed anxiety and/or mood disorders. Female partners were also trained to collect basal saliva samples for the measurement of salivary stress markers, alpha-amylase and cortisol.
Intervention(S):
None.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
Birth outcome data including infant sex were collected upon delivery. Modified Poisson regression models were used to estimate the relative risks (RRs) of a male birth for each stress marker.
Result(S):
After adjusting for potential confounders, we observed a 76% increase in the risk of fathering a male infant (RR 1.76; 95% confidence interval 1.17-2.65) in men diagnosed with anxiety disorders compared with those who were not diagnosed. When lifetime history of physician-diagnosed anxiety disorders was modeled jointly for the couple, the association was slightly strengthened (RR 2.03; 95% confidence interval 1.46-2.84).
Conclusion(S):
This prospective cohort study suggests that paternal lifetime history of physician-diagnosed anxiety disorders may be associated with an increase in the secondary sex ratio, resulting in an excess of male births.
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