Welcome to the Stress, Pregnancy, & Health Study

Pregnancy is a time of great changes and is shaped by your relationships, your experiences, and your emotions. Some of these factors may be beneficial, and some may cause stress.

Northshore University HealthSystem, in partnership with Northwestern University, is exploring how experiences during pregnancy affect your health and the health of your baby in the Stress, Pregnancy, and Health (SPAH) Research Study.

Learn more!

Thank You for Your Interest in the SPAH Study!

We are pleased to inform you that we have successfully completed the recruitment phase for this study, and we are no longer accepting new participants.

To all those who took part in the SPAH study, your involvement has greatly contributed to advancing our understanding of stress in pregnancy. Your support and dedication are highly appreciated.

If you were part of the SPAH study and want to continue with the SPAH family, we encourage you to explore our SPAH Kids page.

Click Here for SPAH Kids

Why is this research being done?

The purpose of this study is to better understand the social and lifestyle factors that affect birthing parents’ and infants’ health during pregnancy. In particular, we are trying to learn about how parents’ education, relationships with friends and family, mood states, and lifestyles affect the course and outcome of pregnancy.

What is the public health relevance?

The economic and social circumstances in which people live can shape their risk for mental and physical health problems across the life-course. This study attempts to identify biological mechanisms during pregnancy during pregnancy that contribute to these health problems.

We follow a large sample of participants throughout their pregnancies to learn about their:

economic conditions
personal relationships
neighborhood features
psychological states
and their biology

By studying these processes during pregnancy, we may be able to identify targets for presentation of health problems throughout the life course!

How many people are being studied?

We recruited 605 people into this study!

What does the study consist of?

Participants are asked to come to Northwestern’s Foundations of Health Research Center for two 2-hour lab visits
At both visits, we will assess various measures of participant’s health by measuring weight, taking blood pressure, and drawing 2 tablespoons of blood
At delivery, participants will be asked to donate a portion of their placenta to the study.
After delivery, we also gather information from participants’ medical records. This information will help us to understand how the pregnancy went and the baby’s health at the time of delivery.

What can we learn from the health measurements?

From the blood, we will measure levels of hormones and molecules that are modified by stress and also important to successful pregnancies . The blood will also be used to measure how immune cells are functioning. To do that, we will measure levels of RNA, a molecule that cells use to build proteins, and levels of methylation, which affects how easily the cells make RNA.
We will use the cells from the placenta to understand how stress affects levels of hormones and molecules that help babies grow in the womb. As with blood cells, we will do this by measuring RNA and methylation.

Stress was an important part of my health during pregnancy! When I found out there was a team trying to study how stress affects risk for preterm birth, I was very happy to participate!

SPAH0002

SPAH pilot study participant

w

Questions?

Contact us via email!
spah.study@northwestern.edu

Research Study title: Stress and Health During Pregnancy, IRB #STU00206269, Dr. Gregory Miller, Northwestern University, Department of Psychology, Dr. Ann Borders, Northshore University HealthSystem, Maternal-Fetal Medicine