Religiosity and Prenatal Distress: Insights from the Family Matters Study

• In Event: Sociology of Religion Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2. Religion, Marriage, and Family

Abstract

Research has repeatedly identified a positive population-level relationship between religion and well-being. At its best, religion can offer a community, material support, and guidance on health behaviors and moral concerns (Ellison 1991; Upenieks 2021). Pregnancy is a uniquely stressful time that involves dramatic changes to one’s physical and mental state and family status (Kumar et al. 2023), but mothers who attend religious services regularly are less likely to use alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs during pregnancy (Mann et al. 2007) or deliver a low birthweight infant (Burdette et al. 2012). While researchers have studied physical health behaviors during and after pregnancy, the field has neglected to examine the effect of religion on the well-being of people who are currently pregnant. To address this question, we draw upon data from the Family Matters Study (n=412), a nascent, racially- and ethnically diverse nonprobability dataset which broadly investigates the role family networks have on pregnancy outcomes. Within the study, religiosity is measured using survey questions about the frequency of prayer and religious service attendance as well as belief in God. Distress, our key dependent variable, is measured using an eleven-item scale which asks respondents to report their level of distress for a variety of pregnancy- and parenting-related topics such as paying for medical care, physical symptoms of pregnancy, and the health of their baby. We employ ordinal logistic regressions to examine the relationship between religiosity and distress during pregnancy. We find Catholics consistently report lower prenatal distress than religious nones. Evangelical Protestants report lower prenatal distress than religious nones, but only when accounting for affiliation only or for affiliation, attendance, prayer, and certainty. Though prayer and attendance have been linked previously to lower distress, that correlation is not identified here.

Authors

• Johannah Elisabeth Palomo, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Julia Murrow, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Lisa D. Pearce, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill