Risk of childhood injuries after prenatal exposure to maternal bereavement: a Danish National Cohort Study

Maternal stress and anxiety disorders and the longitudinal risk of fractures in children

BACKGROUND

Maternal stress and anxiety are associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, but the association with future childhood injuries is unclear, especially risk of orthopedic fractures.

METHODS

We conducted a longitudinal study of 773,339 newborns in Quebec, Canada between 2006 and 2018. We identified women with stress or anxiety disorders before or after delivery, and computed the incidence of future operative fractures in offspring. We estimated hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association of maternal stress and anxiety disorders with the risk of pediatric fractures, adjusted for maternal and infant characteristics.

RESULTS

Incidence of any fracture was higher for maternal stress (20.5 per 10,000 person-years) and anxiety (19.8 per 10,000 person-years) than no disorder (15.3 per 10,000 person-years). Maternal stress was associated with 1.17 times the risk of pediatric fractures (95% CI 1.00-1.38), and anxiety was associated with 1.26 times the risk (95% CI 1.07-1.47), compared with no disorder. Stress was predominantly linked with fall-related fractures (HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.06-1.50), and anxiety with assault-related fractures (HR 2.97, 95% CI 1.50-5.89). The association of stress with fall-related fractures was more prominent after 36 months of age, whereas anxiety was linked with assault-related fractures before 6 months.

CONCLUSION

Stress and anxiety disorders before or after delivery are associated with the future risk of fractures in children. Women with a history of stress or anxiety disorders may benefit from counselling and social support for child fracture prevention.

Prenatal maternal bereavement and mortality in the first decades of life: a nationwide cohort study from Denmark and Sweden

BACKGROUND

The loss of a close relative is one of the most stressful life events. In pregnancy, this experience has been associated with a higher risk of fetal death and under-five mortality, but little is known about potential effects on long-term mortality in offspring. We examined the association between prenatal maternal bereavement and mortality in a cohort of 5.3 million children followed until up to 37 years of age.

METHOD

The population-based cohort study included 5 253 508 live singleton births in Denmark (1973-2004) and Sweden (1973-2006). Children born to mothers who lost a child, spouse, sibling, or parent during or 1 year before pregnancy were categorized as exposed.

RESULTS

Prenatal maternal bereavement was associated with a 10% increased all-cause mortality risk in offspring [mortality rate ratio (MRR) 1.10, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03-1.18]. The association was the most pronounced for children of mothers who lost a child/spouse (MRR 1.28, 95% CI 1.14-1.44) and was stronger during the first 10 years of life. Prenatal maternal bereavement may have stronger effects on natural causes of death in offspring, including infectious/parasitic disease (MRR 1.86, 95% CI 1.07-3.23), endocrine/nutritional/metabolic diseases (MRR 3.23, 95% CI 2.02-5.17), diseases of nervous system (MRR 3.36, 95% CI 2.47-4.58), and congenital malformations (MRR 1.39, 95% CI 1.08-1.80). No excess mortality risk in offspring was observed for unnatural causes of death.

CONCLUSION

Prenatal maternal bereavement was associated with an increased long-term mortality risk in offspring, particularly for selected natural causes of diseases and medical conditions. Our results support the fetal programming hypothesis that prenatal stress may contribute to ill health from physical diseases later in life.

Childhood trauma, parental death, and their co-occurrence in relation to current suicidality risk in adults: a nationwide community sample of Korea

Although previous studies have suggested that childhood trauma and parental death are strongly associated with suicidality in adulthood, it is still unclear how these factors interact within the same population. A total of 1396 adults were recruited through nationwide multistage probability sampling in South Korea. Subjects were evaluated through face-to-face interviews using the Suicidality Module of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Early Trauma Inventory Self Report-Short Form. Among the 1396 adults, the group that experienced both childhood trauma and parental death had the highest current suicidality risks (F = 12.16, p < 0.0001) and lifetime suicide attempt (χ2 = 35.81, p < 0.0001) compared with the other groups, which were only childhood trauma, only parental death, and neither. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that middle-to-high current suicidality risk and lifetime suicide attempt were significantly associated with concurrent childhood trauma and parental death (odds ratio, 3.64; 95% confidence interval, 1.99-6.65) as well as with only childhood trauma (odds ratio, 1.95; 95% confidence interval, 1.33-2.87), after adjusting for age, sex, education, marital status, household monthly income, and living area. Emotional abuse was the only type of childhood trauma significantly associated with higher current suicidality scores in those who experienced childhood parental death than in those who did not (F = 3.26, p = 0.041). Current suicidality risk and lifetime suicide attempt are associated with experiencing both parental death and trauma, especially emotional abuse, in childhood, whereas experiencing only childhood parental death is associated with neither.