And Pregnancy Attitudes on Low Birth Weight

There is some basis to believe, howev-er, that maternal emotional distress is as-sociated with poor pregnancy outcomes.6 An early study of stress and social support found a relationship between stress, social support and adverse pregnancy out-c o m e s.7 In that study, however, the de-pendent variable was a composite of var-ious birth outcomes and could not be used to isolate risks for low birth weight or preterm delivery. T h ree recent examinations of stress and low birth weight each had different find-ings, measured stress differently and an-alyzed diff e rent risk factors. One used a 28-item psychosocial assessment scale with five separate subscales, one of which measured “stress ” (although the authors did not describe how stress was defin e d).8 Among nearly 2,600 women studied, s t ress was significantly related to both low birth weight and preterm delivery, but not to intrauterine growth retardation. In a study of the association of stre s s and health behaviors and low birth weight in a sample of more than 2,000 urban Marjorie R. Sable is associate professor in the School o