Changes in the cortisol and oxytocin levels of first-time pregnant women during interaction with an infant: a randomized controlled trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

During pregnancy, physiological, psychological, and social changes affect pregnant women's childcare anxiety and childrearing behavior.

However, there are scarce reports on hormonal evaluation related to such anxiety and behavior.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants and adults, women only.

Participants were randomly assigned using a web-based randomization system.

The experimental group involved interaction with an infant for 30 min.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

Because people in this Oxytocin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

This was a two-arm randomized controlled trial.

The control group involved watching a DVD movie of an infant for 30 min.

Saliva samples were collected at preintervention and postintervention.

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of St.

What Was Measured

However, there are scarce reports on hormonal evaluation related to such anxiety and behavior.

Herein, the researchers evaluated changes in salivary cortisol (primary outcome) and oxytocin (secondary outcome) levels of first-time pregnant women when interacting with an infant and discussed the relation of these changes to the women's stress level.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Hydrocortisone, Interpersonal Relations, Oxytocin, Pregnant People and Saliva.

Author keywords: Cortisol, Infant, Interaction, Pregnancy, Primipara and Randomized controlled trial (8/10).

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Oxytocin.

Results are reported in around 8 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2021 (BMC pregnancy and childbirth), a journal based in England.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.