Table 3.
Correlation coefficients between predictor variables and cord blood relative telomere length for entire sample and split by infant sex
| Entire Sample N = 151 |
Males n = 83 |
Females n = 68 |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| r | p | r | p | r | p | Z-test | |
| Maternal health in pregnancy | |||||||
| Maternal smoking during pregnancy | −.18 | .025 | −.28 | .011 | −.05 | .706 | −1.423 |
| Maternal body mass index (BMI), kg/m2 | −.12 | .155 | −.28 | .011 | .09 | .501 | −2.263* |
| Socioeconomic status in pregnancy | |||||||
| Maternal educational attainment | .14 | .096 | .37 | .001 | −.12 | .335 | 3.048* |
| Annual household income in pregnancy | .07 | .436 | .32 | .004 | −.22 | .072 | 3.325* |
| Maternal mental health in pregnancy | |||||||
| Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PCL-C) | −.12 | .166 | −.22 | .056 | −.02 | .855 | −1.220 |
| Depressive symptoms (continuous, EPDS) | .06 | .504 | −.08 | .470 | .21 | .099 | −1.757 |
| Elevated depressive symptoms (categorical, EPDS) | −.08 | .317 | −.24 | .030 | .16 | .206 | −2.432* |
| Maternal stress exposures in her childhood and in pregnancy | |||||||
| Physical abuse in childhood (CTQ-SF) | −.03 | .710 | −.03 | .797 | −.04 | .772 | 0.060 |
| Emotional abuse in childhood (CTQ-SF) | −.05 | .569 | −.05 | .657 | −.06 | .658 | 0.060 |
| Sexual abuse in childhood (CTQ-SF) | −.13 | .143 | −.31 | .007 | .05 | .718 | −2.219* |
| Total abuse in childhood (CTQ-SF) | −.07 | .388 | −.11 | .337 | −.04 | .770 | −0.422 |
| Stress exposures in pregnancy (CRISYS-R) | .05 | .516 | −.03 | .817 | −.02 | .855 | −0.060 |
| Maternal support in her childhood | |||||||
| Familial emotional support in childhood (CTQ-SF) | .24 | .004 | .34 | .003 | .13 | .284 | 1.338 |
| Control variables | |||||||
| Maternal age | −.11 | .171 | −.06 | .618 | −.18 | .132 | 0.730 |
Note. PCL-C= Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version; EPDS = Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale; CTQ-SF = Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Short Form; CRISYS-R = Crisis in Family Systems-Revised. Telomere length was normally distributed. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated when both variables were continuous and normally distributed; Spearman’s correlation coefficients when both variables were continuous and at least one was non-normally distributed and/or ordinal; point biserial correlations when one variable was dichotomous and the other was continuous; and phi correlation when both variables were dichotomous. Bolded correlation coefficient values are significant at p < .05, two-tailed. Z-test is a result of the transformation of the difference between the correlation coefficients for male and female infants using the Fisher-to-z transformation;
indicates that the magnitude of the correlation coefficients was significantly different between male and female infants using a two-tailed test.