Pregnant during the Pandemic: Pregnancy Distress and COVID-19 Stress in Relation to Current and Anticipated Subjective Sleep Quality

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Maya Verghese
Maya Verghese

Maya Verghese (‘23) is a Psychology and Government double major with a minor in Education Studies from Hamden, CT. She is incredibly passionate about children & adolescent mental health—with specific interests in the social, psychological, & biological implications of chronic stress, anxiety, and depression. Despite being captivated by the development of psychological research and its potential applications to public health policy, Maya hopes to become a pediatric clinical psychologist in the future. Outside of the lab, she loves working as an academic peer advisor, after-school tutor, and volunteer doula in Middletown!

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Abstract: While the CDC reports 1 in 8 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression, there are still concerns around deficiencies in the subjective screening procedures and underdiagnosis—leaving providers searching for a better understanding of potential risk factors and more diverse warning signs during pregnancy. High stress life events, significant prenatal anxiety or worry, and sleep disturbances during pregnancy are consistently associated with the onset of postpartum depression. Recent literature has linked subjective sleep quality reports with emotional distress in pregnancy, more so than objective measures of sleep. Considering the severe social, emotional, financial, and physical distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to investigate stress during pregnancy. 

The following study continues to explore connection between stress and subjective sleep by analyzing data collected from 571 pregnant women during the pandemic to investigate diverse forms of stress during pregnancy—specifically pandemic-related trauma symptoms, virus contamination stress, and pregnancy-related distress—and their individual relationships to subjective perceptions of both current and anticipated sleep quality after birth.

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