The Pregnancy Experience Scale (PES) appears
to be a valid, reliable tool for capturing
positive perceptions of pregnancy as well as
pregnancy-specific hassles. The intensity of
pregnancy-specific hassles was positively
correlated with the intensity with which
women perceived daily life in general to be
stressful. Uplifts tended to be inversely
related to non-pregnancy specific stress
appraisal, but the results were not uniform
across gestation. The intensity with which
women perceive their pregnancy to be
hassling relative to uplifting provided the
most consistent associations with the measure
of non-pregnancy specific stress. This
ratio measure is also most strongly related to
the degree of motor activity generated by the
fetus2, suggesting that measurement of negative
perceptions of pregnancy relative to
positive ones may provide the best indicator
of pregnancy-specific distress.