Antenatal Anxiety and Dyadic Immune Risk (ADIR) Study

The purpose of this study is to identify changes in the immune system of individuals who have anxiety during pregnancy and whether those changes are related to the risk for allergy in their infants. The importance of this research to public health is that it may help scientists to understand why some children have a higher risk of allergies and help us to identify biomarkers that can determine the allergy risk of infants. This research may also help us to design future studies of ways to intervene prior to birth to change the allergic risk of children. 

Almost 10 million children in the US are affected by at least one allergic disease, and the rates of allergies are rising. We know that genetic risk and environmental exposures can affect this risk for allergy, and we know that children born to individuals who are anxious in pregnancy have higher rates of allergy – but we don’t know why.

In this study, we want to examine the function of the immune systems of pregnant individuals with anxiety and determine whether any changes in immune functioning are related to markers of risk for allergy that we can identify in newborns. We will also observe your child’s eating patterns in infancy and measure additional markers of allergy when your baby is about one year old.