Maternal pandemic-related stress during pregnancy associates with infants' socio-cognitive development at 12 months: a longitudinal multi-centric study

Introduction. This database includes the raw data linked with the paper “Maternal pandemic-related stress during pregnancy associates with infants’ socio-cognitive development at 12 months: A longitudinal multi-centric study”. This study is part of the longitudinal and multi-centric “Measuring the outcomes of maternal COVID-19-related prenatal exposure (MOM-COPE)” research project. In this study, we report on the effects of maternal prenatal stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic on 12-month-old infants’ behavioral markers of socio-cognitive development.

Methods. Ninety infants and their mothers provided complete longitudinal data from birth to 12 months. At birth, mothers reported on pandemic-related stress (PRS) during pregnancy through an ad-hoc scale (attached). At infants’ 12-month-age, a remote mother-infant interaction was videotaped: after an initial 2-min face-to-face episode, the experimenter remotely played a series of four auditory stimuli. Infants’ orienting, communication, and pointing toward the auditory source was micro-analytically coded.

Analytical plan. Two principal component analyses (PCA) were used to reduce the infant behavioral data. The first PCA yielded 3 principal components (Orienting; Communication; Pointing), while the second PCA showed the presence of an over-arching socio-cognitive score. Separate independent-sample t-tests were used to assess the presence of statistically significant differences in maternal prenatal PRS between infants who showed or not each of the socio-cognitive behavior. Separate hierarchical regression models were used to further test the effect of PRS on infants’ socio-cognitive development continuous measures.

Results in brief. Mothers who reported greater prenatal pandemic-related stress had infants with higher probability of showing no communication or pointing after the auditory stimuli. A significant and negative linear association was found between maternal prenatal PRS and infants’ SCS at 12 months, while adjusting for potential confounders.