Associations between psychological or biological stress indicators and gut microbiota in pregnant women - findings from a prospective longitudinal study.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective longitudinal observational cohort study
PubMed 40684088 · doi:10.1186/s12866-025-04146-6
What was done
A prospective longitudinal cohort study tracked 171 pregnant women across each trimester and into early postpartum. Gut microbiota was profiled using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing at each time point. Participants completed psychological questionnaires (Perceived Stress Scale, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, and 6-item State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) twice per trimester and twice postpartum. Blood cortisol levels were measured in the first and third trimesters. Analyses evaluated temporal shifts and correlations between stress markers and microbiota measures, adjusting for multiple testing.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values or effect sizes. Cortisol levels rose significantly from the first to the third trimester. Gut microbiota composition showed significant temporal changes between the first and second trimesters and between the first and third trimesters. Perceived stress, depression, and anxiety showed moderate temporal changes with high individual-level consistency. After controlling for multiple testing, no significant associations were found between psychological or biological stress measures (perceived stress, depression, anxiety, cortisol) and gut microbiota diversity, community composition, or relative abundances of individual bacterial taxa.
Why it matters
This study challenges previous findings linking perinatal psychological distress to maternal gut microbiome alterations, highlighting that prior positive results may reflect uncorrected multiple comparisons.
Limits
The sample size was limited to 171 participants, microbiome profiling used 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing rather than shotgun metagenomics, and the abstract provides no numerical values, effect sizes, or information on dietary and medication confounders.
Cited by
- context Cortisol release is known to produce an imbalance in the gut microbiome.