Fetal kick counting and its effect on parental anxiety

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Background: Maternal sub-clinical psychopathology may negatively impact infant motor development (Piallini et al., 2016). Therefore, practices reducing maternal psychopathology symptoms should be identified. Fetal movement counting has been reported to reduce anxiety in expecting mothers (Delaram, 2016). However, obstetricians generally advise against fetal kick counting over concerns that this practice may increase maternal worrying (Sastaad, 2012). Given this mixed evidence, the current study's goal was to examine the effect of fetal kick counting during the third trimester of pregnancy on sub-clinical parental anxiety symptoms and infant motor development following birth.
Methods: A total of 43 families participated in the current study, including 23 families who joined the study during their third trimester of pregnancy ("kick group") and 20 families who joined the study during the first months after their child was born ("no-kick group"). Mothers in the kick-group completed two weeks of counting fetal kicks for 10 minutes each day. Following the birth of their child, all families completed the Symptom Checklist 90R (SCL90; Derogatis, 1983), and 29 families (14 kick, 15 no-kick) additionally completed the Early Motor Questionnaire (EMQ; Libertus & Landa, 2013). There were no significant differences between the groups on any demographic variables such as parental education, income, race, birth-weight, or parental age.
Results: Given prior findings in the literature, we aimed to determine whether completing daily fetal kick counts would increase (see Sastaad, 2012) or reduce maternal anxiety (see Delaram, 2016). Hierarchical linear regression indicates that maternal education and child age are significant predictors of maternal anxiety on the SCL90, R2Adj = .154, p = .022. However, the total number of days mothers completed the kick-count activity for our study predicted approximately 11% of variation in anxiety scores above and beyond influences of maternal education and child age, R2Change = .109, p = .029. Further, analyses within the kick-group reveal trends suggesting that fetal kick-rates during the third trimester of pregnancy correlate positively with infant's subsequent gross motor skills on the EMQ (r = .497, p = .071) and negatively with parent's negative perceptions about their child (r = -.473, p = .088).
Conclusions: The current results support the notion that engaging in fetal kick counting for a brief period before birth can significantly lower parental anxiety symptoms following their child's birth. Our findings add support to prior research suggesting a positive impact of fetal kick counting on maternal mental health (Delaram, 2016). Fetal movement patterns also seem related to the child's subsequent motor development and affect parental perception of their child. However, at this point, it is unclear whether fetal activity patterns themselves are related to future development or whether there is an indirect effect via a reduction in parental psychopathology symptoms (see Piallini et al., 2016). Future research will examine this issue in more detail.

Authors

• Brenna Owens, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Klaus Libertus, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author