Background: Preterm infants face unique stress states in early life. Early-life stress has been associated with changes in cortisol reactivity and behavioral abnormalities later in childhood in non-preterm populations. The neonatal infant stressor scale (NISS) has been used to estimate infant stress in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), but has not been biomarker-validated. The relationship between NISS scores and salivary cortisol is unknown. Objective: To test the association between NISS scores and salivary cortisol in the NICU Hospital Exposures and Long-Term Health (NICU-HEALTH) preterm birth cohort. Methods: 386 salivary cortisol specimens were collected from 125 NICU-HEALTH participants during the NICU hospitalization. NISS scores were calculated to represent the infant's experience in the 6 hours prior to specimen collection. Adjusted mixed-effect regression models were used to assess the association between each NISS score and salivary cortisol. Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use:

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