The role of emotional factors in obstetric complications: a review.

This paper explores the relationship between emotional factors and "psychogenic" obstetric complications (those involving no discernible physical cause) by reviewing the pertinent articles that have appeared during primarily the past 15 years. The literature provides no conclusive evidence of causal relationships between emotional factors and such complications. The most consistent findings were that women who subsequently experienced any of a variety of obstetric complications had higher anxiety levels and used fewer repressive-type defenses than women who experienced normal pregnancies and deliveries. These findings are discussed in terms of the presumed causal role of emotional factors in psychogenic obstetric complications.