Stress and pregnancy among African-American women

Research on stress tends to support an adverse effect on pregnancy outcomes , and suggests that the impact of these stressors is modified by social cla ss and/or race. This study explicitly examined social factors such as exper iences of discrimination, either racial or sexual, and neighbourhood crime as predictors of stress. We also examined cortisol and stress as predictors of blood pressure. A subsample of 94 African-American pregnant women, aged 18-39 years, who were enrolled in a longitudinal study of pregnancy and ex posure to lead in the environment were used in this analysis. The women wer e patients at an obstetrics clinic at Magee Women's Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Younger age, higher income, lower education and experiences of di scrimination, both racial and sexual, were related to greater perceived str ess; however, life events were not related to perceived stress. Higher inco me and urinary cortisol adjusted for creatinine were related to systolic bl ood pressure after the 36th week. As a body of evidence suggests that stres s can have deleterious effects in both pregnant and non-pregnant women, fut ure research should examine these forms of discrimination, especially racia l discrimination, as a possible reason for the disparity in adverse pregnan cy outcomes between African-American and white women.