Intergenerational Consequences: Women's Experiences of Discrimination in Pregnancy Predict Infant Social-Emotional Development at 6 Months and 1 Year.

OBJECTIVE: Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in infant development in the United States have lifelong consequences. Discrimination predicts poorer health and academic outcomes. This study explored for the first time intergenerational consequences of women's experiences of discrimination reported during pregnancy for their infants' social-emotional development in the first year of life. METHODS: Data come from a longitudinal study with predominantly Black and Latina, socioeconomically disadvantaged, urban young women (N = 704, Mage = 18.53) across pregnancy through 1 year postpartum. Women were recruited from community hospitals and health centers in a Northeastern US city. Linear regression analyses examined whether women's experiences of everyday discrimination reported during pregnancy predicted social-emotional development outcomes among their infants at 6 months and 1 year of age, controlling for potentially confounding medical and sociodemographic factors. Path analyses tested if pregnancy distress, anxiety, or depressive symptoms mediated significant associations. RESULTS: Everyday discrimination reported during pregnancy prospectively predicted greater inhibition/separation problems and greater negative emotionality, but did not predict attention skills or positive emotionality, at 6 months and 1 year. Depressive symptoms mediated the association of discrimination with negative emotionality at 6 months, and pregnancy distress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms mediated the association of discrimination with negative emotionality at 1 year. CONCLUSION: Findings support that there are intergenerational consequences of discrimination, extending past findings to infant social-emotional development outcomes in the first year of life. It may be important to address discrimination before and during pregnancy and enhance support to mothers and infants exposed to discrimination to promote health equity across the life span.

Effect of Previous Posttraumatic Stress in the Perinatal Period.

OBJECTIVE: To review the extant literature on the effect of traumatic experiences that pre-date conception, pregnancy, and the postpartum period (perinatal period) and present a thematic overview of current issues in this relatively new area of inquiry. DATA SOURCES: Electronic databases Cochrane, CINAHL, PsychINFO, and PubMed were searched. Manual searches of reference lists supplemented the electronic search. STUDY SELECTION: Peer-reviewed articles written in English on the role of posttraumatic stress disorder during the perinatal period were included. DATA EXTRACTION: Key findings relevant to perinatal posttraumatic stress that were reported in primary sources and meta-analyses were organized according to themes, including The Role of Childbirth, Comorbidity With Depression and Anxiety, Risk Factors for Perinatal PTSD, High-Risk Health Behaviors, and Association With Adverse Health Outcomes. DATA SYNTHESIS: Across studies, antenatal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates were estimated between 2.3% and 24%, and observed prevalence rates during the postnatal period ranged from 1% to 20%; however, many researchers failed to assess PTSD that existed before or during pregnancy, and when preexisting PTSD is a controlled variable, postpartum rates drop to 2% to 4.7%. In addition to prenatal depression and anxiety and pre-pregnancy history of psychiatric disorders, history of sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, and psychosocial attributes are risk factors for development or exacerbation of perinatal PTSD. CONCLUSION: Women's health care providers should evaluate for PTSD in routine mental health assessments during and after pregnancy, especially with a reported history of trauma or the presence of a mood or anxiety disorder. Such screening will allow women to receive needed treatment and referrals and mitigate the potentially negative sequelae of PTSD. Future investigators must recognize the importance of subsyndromal posttraumatic stress symptoms and individual differences in responses to trauma.

Between Synergy and Travesty: A Sexual Risk Syndemic Among Pregnant Latina Immigrant and Non-immigrant Adolescents.

Substance use, intimate partner violence, and depression contribute to sexual risk individually, yet have not been evaluated as a syndemic for adolescents. Using data from 772 pregnant Latina adolescents, we evaluated these factors as a syndemic and tested the moderating role of immigration. Bivariate analyses showed syndemic score (OR = 1.40, p = 0.02) and severity (OR = 1.68, p = 0.006) were predictors for multiple sex partners, and syndemic score predicting STIs (OR = 1.15, p = 0.05). Syndemic severity remained significant in multivariate analyses for multiple sex partners (OR = 1.53, p = 0.04). Moderation analyses showed higher syndemic severity was associated with more condom use among immigrants (OR = 1.75, p = 0.04) and less condom use (OR = 0.07, p = 0.011) among those with separated orientation. Higher syndemic severity also predicted greater odds for multiple partners (OR = 2.40, p = 0.01) among immigrants. This evidence suggests a sexual risk syndemic exists among Latina adolescents. Research should continue exploring this phenomenon, particularly exploring the role immigration plays for sexual health.

Discrimination and excessive weight gain during pregnancy among Black and Latina young women.

RATIONALE: Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is a major determinant of later life obesity among both Black and Latina women and their offspring. However, psychosocial determinants of this risk, including everyday discrimination, and potential moderators of such effects remain unexplored. OBJECTIVE: We examined the influence of discrimination, a culturally relevant stressor, on odds of gaining weight beyond Institute of Medicine recommendations during pregnancy. Whether the effect was moderated by race/ethnicity, age, or depressive symptoms was also examined. METHOD: Participants were 413 Black and Latina pregnant young women, ages 14-21 years. Experience with discrimination and all moderators were assessed in the second trimester. Last weight recorded in the third trimester was abstracted from medical records and used to determine excessive weight gain. RESULTS: Ever experiencing discrimination was associated with a 71% increase in the odds of excessive weight gain. The effect of discrimination was primarily present among women who attributed this treatment to membership in a historically oppressed group (e.g., ethnic minority, female) or to membership in other stigmatized groups (e.g., overweight). The effect of ever experiencing discrimination was not moderated by race/ethnicity or age but was moderated by depressive symptoms. Supporting the perspective of the environmental affordances model, discrimination strongly predicted excessive weight gain when women were low in depressive symptoms but had no effect when women were high in depressive symptoms. The moderating role of depressive symptoms was equivalent for Black and Latina women. CONCLUSION: Results highlight the role of discrimination in perpetuating weight-related health disparities and suggest opportunities for improving health outcomes among young pregnant women.

Perceptions of Barriers and Facilitators During Implementation of a Complex Model of Group Prenatal Care in Six Urban Sites.

Group prenatal care improves perinatal outcomes, but implementing this complex model places substantial demands on settings designed for individual care. To describe perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing and sustaining CenteringPregnancy Plus (CP+) group prenatal care, 24 in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 clinicians, staff, administrators, and study personnel in six of the 14 sites of a randomized trial of the model. All sites served low-income, minority women. Sites for the present evaluation were selected for variation in location, study arm, and initial implementation response. Implementing CP+ was challenging in all sites, requiring substantial adaptations of clinical systems. All sites had barriers to meeting the model's demands, but how sites responded to these barriers affected whether implementation thrived or struggled. Thriving sites had organizational cultures that supported innovation, champions who advocated for CP+, and staff who viewed logistical demands as manageable hurdles. Struggling sites had bureaucratic organizational structures and lacked buy-in and financial resources, and staff were overwhelmed by the model's challenges. Findings suggested that implementing and sustaining health care innovation requires new practices and different ways of thinking, and health systems may not fully recognize the magnitude of change required. Consequently, evidence-based practices are modified or discontinued, and outcomes may differ from those in the original controlled studies. Before implementing new models of care, clinical settings should anticipate model demands and assess capacity for adapting to the disruptions of innovation.

Housing instability and birth weight among young urban mothers.

Housing instability is an understudied social condition that may be a severe stressor during pregnancy. Aims of this study are to identify correlates of housing instability and to explore the association between housing instability and birth weight among pregnant teens and young mothers. Participants included pregnant women ages 14-21 from seven community hospitals and health centers in New York City (N = 623). Data were collected via structured surveys during the second trimester of pregnancy (14 to 24 weeks gestation, M = 19.35, SD = 3.20). Birth weight was obtained through labor and delivery logs. Housing instability was operationalized as two or more moves within the past year. More than one in four (28.5 %) pregnant teens and young women in this sample reported housing instability. Women who reported housing instability were less likely to be enrolled in school, have parents as main source of financial support, live in a single-family home or apartment, or be food secure; they were more likely to smoke (all p < 0.05). After adjusting for important clinical, behavioral, and demographic factors typically associated with lower birth weight, housing instability remained a significant predictor of lower birth weight (B (SE) = -83.96(35.47), p = 0.018). Results highlight the importance of housing stability during pregnancy for infant health. Future interventions and policies should ensure that women are housing stable before, during, and after pregnancy.

Changes in experiences with discrimination across pregnancy and postpartum: age differences and consequences for mental health.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to contribute to growing research and theory suggesting the importance of examining patterns of change over time and critical life periods to fully understand the effects of discrimination on health, with a focus on the period of pregnancy and postpartum and mental health outcomes. METHODS: We used hierarchical linear modeling to examine changes across pregnancy and postpartum in everyday discrimination and the resulting consequences for mental health among predominantly Black and Latina, socioeconomically disadvantaged young women who were receiving prenatal care in New York City. RESULTS: Patterns of change in experiences with discrimination varied according to age. Among the youngest participants, discrimination increased from the second to third trimesters and then decreased to lower than the baseline level by 1 year postpartum; among the oldest participants, discrimination decreased from the second trimester to 6 months postpartum and then returned to the baseline level by 1 year postpartum. Within-subjects changes in discrimination over time predicted changes in depressive and anxiety symptoms at subsequent points. Discrimination more strongly predicted anxiety symptoms among participants reporting food insecurity. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support a life course approach to understanding the impact of experiences with discrimination on health and when to intervene.

Discrimination and sexual risk among young urban pregnant women of color.

OBJECTIVE: Discrimination predicts increased risk for many negative health outcomes, helping explain a variety of racial and socioeconomic health disparities. Recent research suggests discrimination may play a role in disparities in HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs); however, this research has focused on risk behaviors and has yet to establish a link between discrimination and STI diagnosis specifically. This investigation tested whether discrimination predicted condom use, risky sexual partners, and self-reported STI diagnosis among a population disproportionately affected by HIV and STIs in the U.S.: young, pregnant, socioeconomically disadvantaged, women of color. METHOD: During second and third trimesters, 885 mostly Latina and Black pregnant women, 14-21 years old, attending 14 hospitals and health centers in New York City for prenatal care, completed interviews. RESULTS: Greater discrimination during second trimester predicted greater odds of STI diagnosis and having a risky sexual partner during third trimester, but not condom use. Whether discrimination was attributed to race, identifying as Black, or identifying as Latina did not moderate effects. CONCLUSION: This is the first investigation establishing a link between discrimination and STI diagnosis, not just risk behavior. It does so among a sample of at-risk, young, pregnant, women of color. Findings suggest implications for sexual risk during pregnancy and across the life span, and risks for the pregnancy and fetus. It is vital to reduce discrimination to eliminate disparities in HIV and STIs. Future research should continue examining the role of discrimination in sexual risk among different populations and work to uncover potential mechanisms.

Maternal experiences with everyday discrimination and infant birth weight: a test of mediators and moderators among young, urban women of color.

BACKGROUND: Racial/ethnic disparities in birth weight persist within the USA. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to examine the association between maternal everyday discrimination and infant birth weight among young, urban women of color as well as mediators (depressive symptoms, pregnancy distress, and pregnancy symptoms) and moderators (age, race/ethnicity, and attributions of discrimination) of this association. METHODS: A total of 420 women participated (14-21 years old; 62 % Latina, 38 % Black), completing measures of everyday discrimination and moderators during their second trimester of pregnancy and mediators during their third trimester. Birth weight was primarily recorded from medical record review. RESULTS: Path analysis demonstrated that everyday discrimination was associated with lower birth weight. Depressive symptoms mediated this relationship, and no tested factors moderated this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Given the association between birth weight and health across the lifespan, it is critical to reduce discrimination directed at young, urban women of color so that all children can begin life with greater promise for health.