Abstract
•Pregnant women had increasing, decreasing, or stable-low anxiety across pregnancy.•Only increasing prenatal anxiety was associated with 12-month infant outcomes.•It was specifically associated with worse receptive language and gross motor skills.•Anxiety at each individual point in pregnancy was not associated with any outcomes.•This highlights the importance of examining changes in anxiety across pregnancy.
A longitudinal study of a sample of women and their offspring from two urban areas (N = 233) was conducted to test whether maternal prenatal anxiety trajectories from early to late pregnancy are associated with 12-month infant developmental outcomes, independent of maternal postpartum anxiety symptoms, prenatal and postpartum depressive symptoms, parity, birth outcomes and maternal education. Three types of maternal anxiety trajectories over the course of pregnancy were identified and labeled increasing, decreasing, and stable-low. Only increasing maternal prenatal anxiety was associated with 12-month infant outcomes, specifically lower Bayley-III scores on receptive language and gross motor skills. Maternal anxiety measured at each individual timepoint in pregnancy was not associated with infant Bayley-III outcomes, highlighting the importance of examining trajectories of maternal affect.