Psychomotor development and cortisol salivary levels in infants that live with their inmate mothers

Abstract

In Chile, the prison system has a program that allows inmate mothers to live with their children under two years of age. This could imply that these children are more exposed to stress conditions and a higher psychomotor developmental delay (PDD) risk.

Objective: To compare the PDD and salivary cortisol concentrations (SCC) of children living in prison with their mothers and to compare the results with control children.

Subjects and Method: Cross-sectional study in 42 infants, 12 of them are children of inmate mothers in the penitentiary center (CPF) of Santiago, and 30 controls from a Primary Care Family Health Center (CESFAM). PDD of infants was assessed through the ASQ-3 questionnaire and salivary cortisol was measured in infants and mothers using radioimmunoassay.

Results: The median salivary cortisol level of the children of CPF and CESFAM mothers was 2.3 ng/ ml (IQR 1.1 to 2.7) and 2.1 ng/ml (IQR 1.6 to 2, 9) respectively. Maternal cortisol was 4.6 ng/ml (IQR 3.8 to 7.3) in the CPF and 3.7 ng/ml (IQR 2.4 to 4.7) in the CESFAM. The PDD deficit was 2.3% and 28.5% for children from the CPF and the CESFAM respectively, without statistical difference (p = 0.06).

Conclusions: There was no difference in the PDD and salivary cortisol between children of both groups.