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Maternal pandemic-related stress during pregnancy associates with infants' socio-cognitive development at 12 months: a longitudinal multi-centric study

<p><strong>Introduction.</strong> This database includes the raw data linked with the paper &ldquo;Maternal pandemic-related stress during pregnancy associates with infants&rsquo; socio-cognitive development at 12 months: A longitudinal multi-centric study&rdquo;. This study is part of the longitudinal and multi-centric &ldquo;Measuring the outcomes of maternal COVID-19-related prenatal exposure (MOM-COPE)&rdquo; research project. In this study, we report on the effects of maternal prenatal stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic on 12-month-old infants&rsquo; behavioral markers of socio-cognitive development.</p> <p><strong>Methods.</strong> Ninety infants and their mothers provided complete longitudinal data from birth to 12 months. At birth, mothers reported on pandemic-related stress (PRS) during pregnancy through an ad-hoc scale (attached). At infants&rsquo; 12-month-age, a remote mother-infant interaction was videotaped: after an initial 2-min face-to-face episode, the experimenter remotely played a series of four auditory stimuli. Infants&rsquo; orienting, communication, and pointing toward the auditory source was micro-analytically coded.</p> <p><strong>Analytical plan.</strong> Two principal component analyses (PCA) were used to reduce the infant behavioral data. The first PCA yielded 3 principal components (Orienting; Communication; Pointing), while the second PCA showed the presence of an over-arching socio-cognitive score. Separate independent-sample t-tests were used to assess the presence of statistically significant differences in maternal prenatal PRS between infants who showed or not each of the socio-cognitive behavior. Separate hierarchical regression models were used to further test the effect of PRS on infants&rsquo; socio-cognitive development continuous measures.</p> <p><strong>Results in brief.</strong> Mothers who reported greater prenatal pandemic-related stress had infants with higher probability of showing no communication or pointing after the auditory stimuli. A significant and negative linear association was found between maternal prenatal PRS and infants&rsquo; SCS at 12 months, while adjusting for potential confounders.</p>