Abstract
Background and objectives: Despite growing interest in the role of maternal psychosocial stress as a determinant of preterm birth, no existing work has examined the relation between maternal stress and post-term birth (≥42 weeks). We hypothesize that prolonging gestation past term may represent an adaptive strategy to a suboptimal environment. Methodology: We examined the relationship between exposure to the September 2001 terrorist attacks and odds of post-term birth in California. We calculated the expected odds of post-term birth among conception cohorts of singleton gestations in California between October 1996 and November 2005. We used time series analysis to test for higher than expected odds of post-term birth among the 10 cohorts exposed to the attacks of September 2001 (those conceived from December 2000 to September 2001). Results: The observed odds of post-term delivery among gestations at 33-36 weeks in September 2001 were higher than statistically expected for all race/ethnic and sex groups. Conclusions and implications: Our finding that odds of post-term birth were higher than expected among pregnancies exposed to the September 2001 terrorist attacks in late gestation provides initial support for the hypothesis that exposure to a psychosocial stress during pregnancy may result in prolonged gestation.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | eov001 |
Pages (from-to) | 13-20 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Evolution, Medicine and Public Health |
Volume | 2015 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Critical window
- Gestation
- Growth
- Parent-offspring conflict
- Post term
- Pre-term
- Pregnancy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine (miscellaneous)
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis