Early origins and adult correlates of psychosomatic distress

Previous studies have demonstrated associations between fetal insults and psychological and developmental outcomes in children and adolescents. It is not clear whether psychosomatic problems in adults also have early origins. This study involved full-term live-born singletons free of congenital anomaly in the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study. Birthweight, gestational age, maternal smoking, parental social class and birth order were recorded around the time of birth. Psychological and somatic distresses were measured by the Malaise Inventory at age 26. A number of socio-behavioural covariates were also measured at this time. Multiple (least square) regression analysis showed that birthweight standardised for gestational age had a “reverse J” relation with psychological distress (p<0.05); gestational age was inversely related to psychological distress (each p<0.05); levels of maternal smoking were positively related to both psychological distress and somatic distress (each p<0.01). Logistic regression analyses of high levels of psychological distress and somatic distress gave similar results. The findings were not strongly affected by adjustment for various adult correlates. In supplementary analyses multiple imputation was used to handle loss to follow-up and missing values at age 26. Approximately, the same patterns of associations were found. The results support the hypothesis of a biological link between perinatal factors and psychological distress in adults. The strengths of the associations were compared with those between the outcome and adult correlates.