Maternal Consistency in Recalling Prenatal Experiences at 6 Months and 8 Years Postnatal.
Amanda M Ramos, Kristine Marceau, Jenae M Neiderhiser and 3 others
PMID 32740284WHAT IT FOUND
Birth mothers recalled smoking, delivery type, and pre-eclampsia consistently over 8 years, but were unreliable for alcohol, infections, and prematurity.
Clinicians should not rely solely on maternal report for these specific events, as accuracy does not improve with time.
Key findings
01Mothers showed good-to-very good consistency in recalling smoking during pregnancy, type of delivery, and pre-eclampsia over an 8-year period.
02Recall was fair-to-poor for alcohol use, urinary tract infections, anemia, and prematurity, indicating these details are unreliable when collected retrospectively.
03Individual factors like education and parity had little effect on overall recall consistency, except for specific items like prematurity which experienced mothers recalled better.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The sample consists exclusively of birth mothers in an adoption study, which may limit generalizability to other populations. Missing data occurred for some prenatal experiences due to changes in the study protocol over time. The prevalence of delivery complications was low because the study excluded children with major medical conditions, which affected the statistical reliability for those specific items. Higher rates of depression in this sample compared to the general population may have influenced underreporting of certain experiences.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that maternal recall becomes more accurate or reliable as the child gets older. The study found that consistency for critical factors like alcohol use and prematurity remained fair-to-poor even 8 years later, and was not significantly improved by the mother's education level or experience.