Poster Presentation On How Border Community Stress Becomes Embodied In Maternal Mental Health Among Pregnant Latina Women Living In El Paso, Texas

This poster examines how border community stress becomes embodied in maternal mental health among pregnant Latina women living in El Paso, Texas. In conversation with the symposium theme, “Rhetoric from the Margins: Theory, Method, Praxis,” the project treats the U.S.-Mexico border as more than a geographic line: it is a social and institutional environment where surveillance, discrimination, economic precarity, and uneven access to care shape everyday life. The central question is how multidimensional border-related stressors influence psychological distress and self-rated mental health during pregnancy, and whether those associations differ by nativity. Using cross-sectional survey data from 165 pregnant Latina women, the study applies the Border Community and Immigration Stress Scale (BCISS) to measure lifetime stress exposure, severity-weighted lifetime stress, and stress experienced within the past three months. Mental health outcomes include psychological distress measured with the Kessler-10 and a self-rated mental health indicator. Multivariable regression models adjust for maternal age, gestational week, parity, and nativity. Findings show that higher border-related stress is consistently associated with greater psychological distress and poorer self-rated mental health. Severity-weighted lifetime stress shows the strongest association, while recent stress also predicts worse mental health, though more modestly. Associations do not significantly differ by nativity, suggesting that border stress operates broadly across Latina women in this setting. By connecting ecosocial theory, a quantitative measure of lived border conditions, and community-relevant maternal health implications, this project brings theory, method, and praxis into dialogue. It shows how structural inequality is experienced and embodied during pregnancy and points toward approaches that address discrimination, surveillance, and barriers to care as interconnected features of life in border communities. My co-author and I will present the poster together.