Understanding the role of stress in pregnancy and its consequences is important, particularly given documented associations between maternal stress and preterm birth and other pathological outcomes. Physical and psychological stressors can elicit the same biological responses, known as biological strain. Chronic stressors, like poverty and racism (race-based discriminatory treatment), may create a legacy or trajectory of biological strain that no amount of coping can relieve in the absence of larger-scale socio-behavioral or societal changes.
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