Table 3.

Means and standard deviations of salivary cortisol, perceived stress, and maternal mood levels at 6 months postpartum, by group condition.

	CBSM n = 24	UC n = 29	LRC n = 22
	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)
6-month postpartum salivary cortisol
Maternal cortisol (log scores)
Morning cortisol	0.93 (± 0.23)	0.81 (± 0.48)	0.83 (± 0.40)
Evening cortisol	0.30 (± 0.65)	0.13 (± 0.50)	0.10 (± 0.48)
Average cortisol	0.62 (± 0.40)	0.47 (± 0.39)	0.43 (± 0.35)
Cortisol slope	0.62 (± 0.56)	0.68 (± 0.58)	0.76 (± 0.46)
Infant cortisol (log scores)
Morning cortisol	1.03 (± 0.49)	1.16 (± 0.33)	0.96 (± 0.42)
Evening cortisol	0.63 (± 0.52)	0.76 (± 0.52)	0.60 (± 0.49)
Average cortisol†	0.84 (± 0.48)	0.96 (± 0.39)*	0.75 (± 0.31)
Cortisol slope	0.41 (± 0.34)	0.40 (± 0.41)	0.46 (± 0.55)
Collection time [hour:minutes (minutes)]
Mother morning cortisol collection time	8:21 (± 1:05)	8:17 (± 0:52)	8:18 (± 0:55)
Mother evening cortisol collection time	8:15 (± 0:31)	8:10 (± 0:24)	8:08 (± 0:45)
Infant morning cortisol collection time	8:31 (± 1:06)	8:21 (± 0:51)	8:02 (± 1:43)
Infant evening cortisol collection time	8:18 (± 0:31)	8:10 (± 0:24)	8:04 (± 0:46)
6-month postpartum stress and mood measures
Maternal stress rating
Morning stress rating	39.0 (± 19.7)*	28.5 (± 21.4)	21.0 (± 20.3)
Evening stress rating	45.8 (± 29.5)*	33.5 (± 25.0)	26.3 (± 21.9)
Average stress rating	41.4 (± 21.1)*	30.9 (± 22.3)	23.0 (± 20.1)
Depression
CES-D	19.6 (± 12.9)	17.0 (± 12.9)	11.3 (± 7.8)
Affect
Positive affect	1.6 (± 0.7)	1.8 (± 0.7)	2.4 (± 1.1)*
Negative affect	2.5 (± 0.8)	2.4 (± 0.8)	2.3 (± 1.1)

Note. ANOVAs were conducted for all between group analyses

^*p < .05;

^**p < .01;

^***p < .001

^†Group means were significant after controlling for maternal cortisol and maternal age (p < .001)