Hui Li
Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
Title: Reduced face/voice preference in newborns: Evidence for the detection of maternal symptoms of anxiety and depression
Biography
Biography: Hui Li
Abstract
Newborns show visual preference for their mother's face/voice to strangers. Maternal anxiety and depression during the pregnancy period could result in disorder of Hypothalamic -Pituitary -Gonadal Axis function .To determine correlation between newborns’ visual preference and maternal anxiety and depression and to examine the change of serum cortisol in mothers – newborns pairs.A total of 255 hospitalized pregnant women waiting for delivery have completed the 14-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAMA) and the 24-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD), among whom 101 met anxiety criteria(A group),34 met depression criteria(B group) and 120 met control criteria(C group). Within the postnatal 2 weeks, Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) was administered to the newborns’ social interactive behavior. The dependent variables were the duration of the infant's looking (measured in seconds) at the mother's face (sum of seconds of looking on the 2 trials) and at the female stranger with happy and warm face and soft voice. Radio immunoassay was used to detect serum cortisol .The score of social interactive behavior in A and B group were lower than that in C group（p<0.01）； the duration of the newborns preference the mother's face/voice was shorter than the female stranger （p<0.01） assoicated with higher serum cortisolin mothers – newborns pairs in A and B group（p<0.01）. Newborns could detect maternal symptoms of anxiety and depression assoicated with increased serum cortisol in mothers – newborns pairs.