Stress During Pregnancy – Is It Harmful To Your Baby?

According to the research, severe emotional stress during pregnancy can cause abnormalities in your unborn child.

The frequency of malformations is twice among stressful pregnancies when compared with normal pregnancy.

A pregnant woman who is experiencing stressful events in two successive pregnancies is particularly at greater risk. Stress during pregnancy not only affects the gender of your child, but also your baby’s future health.

The reasons behind experiencing stress during pregnancy are many, such as emotional or physical abuse, break-up of marriage relationship, disinterested or uninvolved partner and open infidelity.

Women who experience these types of situations can face highly stressful circumstances. They face loneliness, constant stress, clinical depression, shame and loneliness during or after the birth.

Stress encourages a pregnant woman to drink alcohol thus consuming less healthy diet.

Effects of stress during pregnancy on your baby:

• Mothers who experience stress have a possibility to expose their children to highly stressful hormones, malnutrition and toxins inside their womb.
• The hormone released with stress during pregnancy is cartisone. This hormone leads to raised blood sugar levels and a decrease in the supply of oxygen to the tissues. Both of these conditions can cause birth defects.
• Often, your baby needs to live in the worse toxic environment.
• Your child after birth become underactive, temperamental, hyperactive, inattentive and exhibit poor self control.
• In later ages, your baby needs to be medicated with antidepressants.
• Stress during pregnancy can cause asymmetry in coordination of fingers, ears, feet and elbows. In such children, I.Qs will be lowered.
• It leads to imperfections in your baby’s nervous system. This again leads to the problems associated to memory, thinking and perception.
• It results in pre-term delivery and low birth weight. The babies born due to pre-term delivery weigh less than 5 pounds and they face a high risk of respiratory problems, blindness, retarded motor development and also death.

Stress during pregnancy linked to pediatric problems:

Babies born to anxious and depressed mothers are at increased risk of experiencing sleep problems during infancy and toddlerhood.

Sleep is regarded as an aid for healthy development of your child. It plays a critical role in sustaining cardiovascular health and a vigorous immune function, regulating the metabolism and appetite, consolidating memory and facilitating learning, promoting good moods, and sustaining vigorous immune system.

How you cope with stress will also affect your child’s health. Your heart rate is affected by stress in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters of your pregnancy. Avoiding stress to a greater extent will help in developing a healthy child.