AUTHOR=Schoch-Ruppen Jessica , Ehlert Ulrike , Uggowitzer Franziska , Weymerskirch Nadine , La Marca-Ghaemmaghami Pearl 

TITLE=Women’s Word Use in Pregnancy: Associations With Maternal Characteristics, Prenatal Stress, and Neonatal Birth Outcome

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01234

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01234

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Experiencing high levels of stress during pregnancy can impair maternal well-being and fetal development. Consequently, unbiased assessment of maternal psychological state is crucial. Self-report measures are vulnerable to social desirability effects. Thus, implicit measures, such as word choice analysis, may offer an alternative.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> In this longitudinal online-study, 427 pregnant women described their emotional experiences in writing and additionally responded to self-report questionnaires assessing symptoms of prenatal stress and depression. The written texts were analyzed with a computerized text analysis program. After birth, 253 women provided information on birth outcome.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Word use differed significantly depending on maternal socioeconomic (e.g., marital status) and pregnancy-related characteristics (e.g., parity). Prenatal stress and depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent use of negative emotion words and words of anxiety, as well as with less first-person plural, but not singular pronoun use. Negative emotion and cognitive mechanism words predicted birth outcome, while self-report measures did not.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> In addition to self-report measures, word choice may serve as a useful screening tool for symptoms of depression and stress in pregnant women. The findings on pronoun use may reflect women’s changing experience of self-identity during the transition to motherhood.</p>