Physiologic responses to cognitive challenge during pregnancy: effects of task and repeat testing

Physiological responses to stress during pregnancy are believed to influenc e birth outcomes. Researchers have studied pregnant women in laboratory str essor paradigms to investigate these associations, yet normative data on ca rdiovascular and respiratory responses to laboratory challenge during pregn ancy are not yet established. To begin to establish such normative data, th is study examined the effects of task and repeat stressor exposure on react ivity in third-trimester pregnant women. Thirty-one healthy pregnant women (mean age = 27 years; range 18-36) between the 33rd and 39th week of pregna ncy, were instrumented for continuous electrocardiography, blood pressure ( BP), and respiration data. Subjects rested quietly for a 5-min baseline and then performed both a mental arithmetic stressor and a Stroop color-word-m atching task, each 5 min in length and each followed by a 5-min recovery pe riod. The order of the tasks was counterbalanced. After each 5-min period, subjects rated the period on a 10-point stress scale. Averaged across task type and challenge period, systolic and diastolic BP and respiration rate i ncreased significantly in response to cognitive challenge, but heart rate ( HR) did not. When data were examined for task and period effects, the follo wing results emerged: the Stroop task elicited significantly greater systol ic BP and HR reactivity than the arithmetic task, yet subjects rated the ar ithmetic task as more stressful. Averaged across task type, subjects showed greater systolic BP reactivity during the second challenge period compared to the first. Finally, women's BP tended to drift upward and did not retur n to baseline during the first recovery period. These findings indicate tha t averaging data across tasks and periods can obscure the time course of re sponse patterns that may be important in the study of associations between maternal stress and perinatal development, as well as in other research on reactivity to repeat stress exposure. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All ri ghts reserved.