Worrying yourself sick? Association between pre-eclampsia onset and health-related worry in pregnancy

We examined the relationship between worry about pregnancy health and pre-eclampsia. General stress, mental health, and self-reported pregnancy health worry were measured in a study of 10,037 U.S. nulliparous women. Logistic regression found a dose-response relationship between first trimester pregnancy-health worry and subsequent pre-eclampsia onset, controlling for health history (Beta = 0.40, SE = 0.09, P < 1 × 10−6). A machine learning regularized regression found a significant relationship between worry and pre-eclampsia onset, controlling for all other potential predictors of pre-eclampsia measured at baseline, suggesting that worry plays a unique role in pre-eclampsia risk.
Source: Pregnancy Hypertension: An International Journal of Womens Cardiovascular Health - Category: OBGYN Source Type: research