Maternal distress and congenital malformations: do mothers of malformed fetuses have more problems?

As compared with 580 randomly chosen pregnant women without malformed offsp ring, 161 women with malformed offspring at the index pregnancy had a more frequent history of previous multiple offspring deaths and somewhat increas ed maternal age but were not different on social class, marital or cohabita tion status or parity. As compared with demographically similar reproducing women (n = 54) interviewed, malformation cases (n = 98) reported having ha d significantly more strong stress before identification of the malformatio n, as well as a clear tendency toward less appropriate timing of the pregna ncy. Women with malformed offspring represent a psychosocially vulnerable g roup and should receive special clinical and personal support. (C) 1999 Pub lished by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.