ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2008
Diurnal rhythm of cortisol during late pregnancy: associations with maternal psychological well-being and fetal growth.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03664128 (Pregnancy and Anxious Thoughts), which is not on this map. Cited by 66 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Pregnancy and Anxious Thoughts: The Role of the Immune and Endocrine Systems
Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 175 citations in OpenAlex.
- A randomized trial of prenatal cognitive behavioral stress management effects on obstetric health outcomes and infant cortisol levels.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Trial
- The effects of a music and singing intervention during pregnancy on maternal well-being and mother-infant bonding: a randomised, controlled study.Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · 2021Trial
- Effects of antenatal hypnosis on maternal salivary cortisol during childbirth and six weeks postpartum-A randomized controlled trial.PloS one · 2020Trial
- Improving ambulatory saliva-sampling compliance in pregnant women: a randomized controlled study.PloS one · 2014Trial
- Anxiety and chronic couple relationship stress moderate adrenocortical response to couple interaction in expectant parents.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2013Trial
- Impact of a prenatal cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention on salivary cortisol levels in low-income mothers and their infants.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2011Trial
- Maternal sleep deprivation and developmental programming of brain aging trajectories in offspring.Biogerontology · 2026Review
- Breaking the Cycle of Preterm Birth: A Prospective Cohort Study on Maternal Stress and Recurrent Preterm Birth.BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · 2026Article
- Do not exclude your observations: Negative cortisol awakening responses (CAR) may be biologically relevant.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Serial Diurnal Salivary Cortisol Profiles in 667 Pregnant Women-Association With Cardiometabolic Complications.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2024Article
- Developmental cascades from maternal preconception stress to child behavior problems: Testing multilevel preconception, prenatal, and postnatal influences.Developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Relationships Among Number of Stressors, Perceived Stress, and Salivary Cortisol Levels During the Third Trimester of Pregnancy.Journal of obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal nursing : JOGNN · 2024Article
- Cortisol reactivity to a laboratory stressor predicts increases in depressive symptoms in perinatal and nulliparous women during population-level stress.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Article
- Maternal melatonin levels and temporal dietary intake: results from MY-CARE cohort study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Article
- Pregnancy-specific anxiety and gestational length: The mediating role of diurnal cortisol indices.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Effectiveness of mindfulness training on pregnancy stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in women in China: A multicenter randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Ontogeny of the Dyad: the Relationship Between Maternal and Offspring Neuroendocrine Function.Current psychiatry reports · 2022Review
- Chrononutrition is associated with melatonin and cortisol rhythm during pregnancy: Findings from MY-CARE cohort study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
- Prenatal mother-father cortisol linkage predicts infant executive functions at 24 months.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Article
- Subjective Wellbeing in Rural China: How Social Environments Influence the Diurnal Rhythms of Affect.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Maternal psychological functioning during pregnancy affects both maternal and fetal well-being. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis provides one mechanism through which maternal psychosocial factors may be transduced to the fetus. However, few studies have examined maternal psychological factors or birth outcomes in relation to the diurnal pattern of cortisol across the day. The current study examined maternal psychological well-being, parity status, and birth weight in relation to the maternal cortisol diurnal rhythm in a group of 98 low-risk pregnant women (51 primiparae). At 36 weeks gestation, participants completed both pregnancy-specific and general self-report measures of psychological functioning and provided saliva samples at 8:00, 12:00, and 16:00 h on 2 consecutive working days for the assay of cortisol. The expected diurnal decline in salivary cortisol was observed. Higher trait anxiety was associated with a flatter afternoon decline for all mothers. For primiparae, steeper morning cortisol declines were associated with lower infant birth weight. The findings suggest that regulation of the HPA axis may differ by parity status with downstream implications for fetal growth and development.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.