What is prenatal stress? A scoping review of how prenatal stress is defined and measured within the context of food insecurity, housing instability, and immigration in the United States

Background: Stress during pregnancy can lead to significant adverse outcomes for maternal mental health. Early evaluation of prenatal stress help identify treatment needs and appropriate interventions. Disparities in the social determinants health contribute stress, but what constitutes within framework is poorly understood. Objective: To scope how defined measured among pregnant people exposed three prominent stressors United States: insecurity pertaining food, housing, immigration. Eligibility Criteria: We included all studies that focused on context food insecurity, housing instability, immigration, given their recent policy focus due COVID-19 pandemic ongoing political discourse, addition importance American College Obstetricians Gynecologists (ACOG’s) screening tool. Sources Evidence: searched PubMed, Scopus, Web Science articles published between January 2012 2022. Charting Methods: Using a piloted charting tool, we extracted relevant study information from selected analyzed content stress. Results: An initial search identified 1,023 articles, which 24 met our inclusion criteria. None only one used Prenatal Distress Questionnaire, stress-specific tool measure it. The Perceived Scale was most common instrument seven studies. Fifteen over 25 alternative exposures researchers theorized were associated with 4 15 did not explain association Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate fundamental inconsistency health, limiting comparison results across potential development effective interventions promote better