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Updated: Jul 28, 2025

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
Do Psychological and Behavioural Factors Change Over Pregnancy?
Zhijie Michael Yu1, Sherry Van Blyderveen2, Louis Schmidt3
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON.
Objectives:
To investigate how psychological and behavioural factors change from the first to the last half of pregnancy.
Methods:
In this prospective cohort study, we assessed the changes in psychological and behavioural factors across 10 domains among 445 women (mean age = 30.9 years) in Ontario, Canada. We collected data using 2 standardized questionnaires administered at <21 and 32-36 weeks of gestation. We computed intraclass correlation coefficients, percentages of no change, decrease, and increase, and mean differences between the 2 surveys.
Results:
Most psychological and behavioural factors had intraclass correlation coefficients < 0.50 between the first and the second half of pregnancy, suggesting remarkable changes over the course of pregnancy. We observed significant decreases in self-efficacy, compensatory health beliefs, guilt regarding binge eating, emotional eating, dietary restriction, pregnancy-related nausea and food cravings, sleep duration, and physical activity. We also found increases in anxious and depressive symptoms and the tendency to accept friends' and family's beliefs regarding pregnancy.
Conclusions:
In the first prospective analysis, we found that many psychological and behavioural factors changed significantly over pregnancy.
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