(PS1-99) Romantic Relationship Quality and Preterm Birth Among Women Residing in a Local Shelter

Preterm birth is a prevalent issue widely known to be associated with an increased risk of infant mortality, as well as developmental concerns including feeding difficulties, developmental delay, breathing problems, vision and hearing problems, and cerebral palsy. Preterm birth has also been associated with poor psychosocial outcomes later in life such as social, emotional, and attention difficulties. Recent estimates show that preterm birth affects about 1 in 10 infants in the US. Prior research has shown that social support, and specifically partner support, may be a protective factor for adverse health outcomes, but few studies have explored the relationship between partner support and preterm birth. The current study assessed the relationship between partner support as self-rated relationship quality and preterm birth in a diverse sample of unhoused postpartum women residing in a local emergency shelter. We hypothesized that relationship quality would be negatively associated with preterm birth.

Archival data previously collected by shelter staff was abstracted from a local safety shelter housing pregnant women from 2013 to 2023. Data was reviewed and abstracted by pairs of research personnel and followed by quality checks from a different pair of research personnel at random. Perceived quality of current romantic relationship was collected as a single-rated item on a scale of 1 (lowest quality) to 5 (highest quality). This romantic partnership may or may not have been with the father of the baby. Gestational age was abstracted from medical records and collected as a dichotomized variable. Preterm birth was dummy coded as 0 and full-term birth was dummy coded as 1. This sample of women identified as either Asian (0.9%), Black/African American (15.2%), American Indian/Alaska Native (1.3%), White (55.7%), or unknown/refused (18.7%), with 50.5% identifying as Hispanic. Women were between 18 and 46 years old, with an average age of 27.13. A t-test found a significant relationship between self-rated relationship quality and preterm birth [t(33) = 1.865, p = .036) indicating that women who experienced a full-term birth, as opposed to preterm birth, reported higher ratings of relationship quality. 

This finding suggests that perceived current romantic relationship quality may serve a protective role in birth outcomes for at-risk women. Women in healthy relationships may feel more supported during pregnancy and thus experience less stress. This study holds important implications for optimizing birth outcomes for at-risk women in clinical practice. One limitation of our study was that the nature of our data limited our sample size for this hard-to-reach population. Future research should explore the relationship between mothers’ romantic relationship quality and preterm birth in a larger sample. Future studies should also explore the mechanisms behind this relationship, such as stress due to a lack of social support, and identify additional protective factors against preterm birth. In order to develop effective interventions for preterm birth, a better understanding of the underlying causes of the relationship between partner support and preterm birth is needed.