Meta-Analytic Findings of the Relation Between Maternal Prenatal Stress and Anxiety and Child Cognitive Outcome
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Different studies have revealed mixed findings regarding the relation between maternal prenatal stress or anxiety (MPSA) and early child cognitive outcome. Different methodological considerations may be linked to the absence of clear support for this hypothesized link. The purpose of this article was to conduct a meta-analysis of this relation while considering the following as potential moderators: (1) pregnancy trimester during which MPSA was assessed, (2) type of MPSA assessment (life events, pregnancy related, subjective assessments), and (3) research design (retrospective or prospective). Other moderators were also examined: child age at assessment and the year of publication. METHOD: Eleven studies were identified (N = 5903) that examined the relation between MPSA and early child cognitive outcome. RESULTS: A small effect size of r = -.05 was found for this relation. The effect size varied across studies and was significantly moderated by the manner in which MPSA was operationalized (events, subjective assessment of stress or pregnancy-related stress or anxiety) and by whether MPSA assessment took place before or after infant birth. Greater relations to child cognitive outcome were found for postnatal event-based indicators of MPSA. CONCLUSION: The relation between MPSA and child cognitive outcome seems to be present, but low. Moreover, it is affected by the specific choices made by researchers in the manner in which constructs are operationalized.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.033 | 0.090 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.038 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".