Women - Anxious moms-to-be risk smaller babies

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Anxious moms-to-be risk smaller babies

PITTSBURGH (UPI) -- Anxiety in pregnant women can affect a baby's size and gestational age, U.S. researchers said.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University and the University of California at Los Angeles studied a sample of low-income women -- half African-American and the other half Caucasian.

The researchers used the State-Trait Personality Index anxiety measure, based on Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, to measure self-reported anxiety at two gestational assessments -- fourth and seventh months, representing the first and second trimesters, respectively -- and at a third assessment shortly after delivery representing the third trimester.

The study, published in the journal journal Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, found the mother's anxiety during pregnancy affects birth outcomes over and beyond factors such as drug use, education and race.

The study said anxiety during the third trimester predicted women delivering significantly smaller babies, but in the first and second trimesters, the effects of anxiety were significant only among those women who had severe anxiety.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 10/29/2009

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