Exposure to childhood traumas ups the odds of giving birth to daughters

Abstract

Purpose This study examined the likelihood of giving birth to a daughter as a function of women’s exposure to four categories of stressors: Childhood Trauma, Adult Trauma, Chronic Stressors, and Recent (adverse) Life Events. Hypothesis 1 stated that that exposure to Recent Life Events (near conception) and to childhood traumas would increase women’s chances of having a girl baby. Hypothesis 2 stated that the relation between stress and gender outcome is mediated by persistent PTSD symptoms. Method The final sample was comprised of 225 women. The design was Prospective Observational. At first contact, women were retained if they were < 27 weeks pregnant and met initial inclusion criteria. In interview 2, at 27–30 weeks, women were excluded for positive diagnoses of anxiety disorders besides PTSD with or without depression (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM disorders). In interview 3 (30–34 weeks), reports on stress categories (Social Stress Indicator Questionnaire, SSI) and PTSD symptoms (Post Traumatic Checklist) were obtained. Infant Gender was obtained from medical records. The relation between stress categories and the distribution of girl/boy infants was examined with Chi Squares and Logistic Regression analyses. Mediation was tested with the macro PROCESS (Hayes 2012). Results Childhood Trauma was the only stress category that increased the odds of having a girl; with an odds ratio of > 3.0 for women who had been exposed to more than two such events. PTSD symptoms (partially) mediated the relation between Childhood Trauma and infant gender. Conclusions Findings suggest that women’s exposure to childhood trauma contributes to the determination of the sex ratio at birth and that PTSD symptoms are part of the cause.