How does stress affect the baby

Stress and pregnancy | March of Dimes

Stress is a common feeling during pregnancy. Physical discomforts and other changes in your daily life can cause stress during pregnancy.

Some types of stress may cause serious health problems, like high blood pressure, and lead to problems like premature birth.

Learn about ways to help manage some stresses in your life like talking to your health care provider and asking your partner, friends or family for help.

How can stress affect your pregnancy?

Feeling stressed is common during pregnancy because pregnancy is a time of many changes. Your family life, your body and your emotions are changing. You may welcome these changes, but they can add new stresses to your life.

High levels of stress that continue for a long time may cause health problems, like high blood pressure and heart disease. During pregnancy, stress can increase the chances of having a premature baby (born before 37 weeks of pregnancy) or a low-birthweight baby (weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces). Babies born too soon or too small are at increased risk for health problems.

What causes stress during pregnancy?

The causes of stress are different for every woman, but here are some common causes during pregnancy:

You may be dealing with the discomforts of pregnancy, like morning sickness, constipation, being tired or having a backache.
Your hormones are changing, which can cause your mood to change. Mood swings can make it harder to handle stress.
You may be worried about what to expect during labor and birth or how to take care of your baby.
If you work, you may have to manage job tasks and prepare your team for when you take maternity leave.
You may worry about how you eat, drink and feel and how these things affect your baby.

What types of stress can cause pregnancy problems?

Stress is not all bad. When you handle it right, a little stress can help you take on new challenges. Regular stress during pregnancy, such as work deadlines, probably don’t add to pregnancy problems.

However, serious types of stress during pregnancy may increase your chances of certain problems, like premature birth. Most women who have serious stress during pregnancy can have healthy babies. But talk to your health care provider if you have these types of stress:

Negative life events. These are things like divorce, serious illness or death in the family, or losing a job or home.
Catastrophic events. These include earthquakes, hurricanes or terrorist attacks.
Long-lasting stress. This type of stress can be caused by having problems with money, being abused, being homeless or having serious health problems.
Depression or anxiety. Depression is a medical condition that causes feelings of sadness and a loss of interest in things you like to do. It can affect how you feel, think and act and can interfere with your daily life. It needs treatment to get better. Anxiety is a feeling of worry or fear of things that may happen. Both conditions may make it hard to take care of yourself and your baby. Depression and anxiety are common and treatable so talk to your provider if you feel depressed or anxious. If you have these conditions before pregnancy, talk to your provider before stopping or starting any medications. Quitting suddenly can cause serious problems for you and your baby. If you need to stop taking medicine or switch medicines, your health care provider can help you make changes safely.
Neighborhood stress. Some women may have stress from living in a neighborhood with poverty and crime.
Racism. Some women may face stress from racism during their lives. This may help explain why African-American women in the United States are more likely to have premature and low-birthweight babies than women from other racial or ethnic groups.
Pregnancy-related stress. Some women may feel serious stress about pregnancy. They may be worried about pregnancy loss, the health of their baby or about how they’ll cope with labor and birth or becoming a parent. If you feel this way, talk to your health care provider.

How does stress cause pregnancy problems?

We don’t completely understand the effects of stress on pregnancy. But certain stress-related hormones may play a role in causing certain pregnancy complications. Serious or long-lasting stress may affect your immune system, which protects you from infection. This can increase the chances of getting an infection of the uterus. This type of infection can cause premature birth.

Other ways stress can cause pregnancy problems include:

Normal pregnancy discomforts, like trouble sleeping, body aches and morning sickness may feel even worse with stress
You may have problems eating, like not eating enough or eating too much. This can make you underweight or cause you to gain too much weight during pregnancy. It also may increase your risk of having gestational diabetes and preterm labor.
Stress may lead to high blood pressure during pregnancy. This puts you at risk of a serious high blood pressure condition called preeclampsia, premature birth and having a low-birthweight infant.
Stress also may affect how you respond to certain situations. Some women deal with stress by smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or taking street drugs, which can lead to serious health problems in you and you baby.

Many women worry that stress may lead to miscarriage, the death of a baby before 20 weeks of pregnancy. While extra stress isn't good for your overall health, there's no evidence that stress causes miscarriage.

How can post-traumatic stress disorder affect pregnancy?

Post-traumatic stress disorder (also called PTSD) is a disorder that develops when you have problems after you experience a shocking, scary or dangerous event. These events may include rape, abuse, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack or the death of a loved one. People with PTSD may have:

Serious anxiety
Flashbacks of the event
Nightmares
Physical responses (like a racing heartbeat or sweating) when reminded of the event

Women who have PTSD may be more likely than women without it to have a premature or low-birthweight baby.^{They also are more likely than other women to have risky health behaviors, such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, abusing medications or taking street drugs. Doing these things can increase the chances of having pregnancy problems. If you think you may have PTSD, talk to your provider or a mental health professional. Treatments for PTSD include medications and therapy.}

Can high levels of stress in pregnancy affect your baby’s health later in life?

Some studies show that high levels of stress in pregnancy may cause certain problems during childhood, like having trouble paying attention or being afraid.^{It’s possible that stress also may affect your baby’s brain development or immune system.}

How can you reduce stress during pregnancy?

Here are some ways to help you reduce stress:

Know that the discomforts of pregnancy are only temporary. Ask your provider about how to handle these discomforts.
Stay healthy and fit. Eat healthy foods, get plenty of sleep and exercise (with your provider’s OK). Exercise can help reduce stress and also helps prevent common pregnancy discomforts.
Cut back on activities you don’t need to do. For example, ask your partner to help with chores around the house.
Try relaxation activities, like prenatal yoga or meditation. They can help you manage stress and prepare for labor and birth.
Take a childbirth education class so you know what to expect during pregnancy and when your baby arrives. Practice the breathing and relaxation methods you learn in your class.
If you’re working, plan ahead to help you and your employer get ready for your time away from work. Use any time off you may have to get extra time to relax.

The people around you may help with stress relief too. Here are some ways to reduce stress with the help of others:

Have a good support network, which may include your partner, family and friends. Or ask your provider about resources in the community that may be helpful.
Figure out what’s making you stressed and talk to your partner, a friend, family or your provider about it.
If you think you may have depression or anxiety talk to your provider right away. Getting treatment early is important for your health and your baby’s health.
Ask for help from people you trust. Accept help when they offer. For example, you may need help cleaning the house, or you may want someone to go with you to your prenatal visits.

Last reviewed: October, 2019

Can Your Stress Affect Your Fetus?

As it turns out, constant pressure may put your baby at risk.

Written by Stephanie Watson

Bringing a new person into the world is no easy task. You worry about everything. Are the foods you eat healthy enough? Is it safe to exercise? How will you juggle work and parenthood once baby arrives?

Some stress during pregnancy is normal, just as it is during other times of life. But if stress becomes constant, the effects on you and your baby could be lasting.

When you’re stressed, your body goes into "fight or flight" mode, sending out a burst of cortisol and other stress hormones. These are the same hormones that surge when you are in danger. They prepare you to run by sending a blast of fuel to your muscles and making your heart pump faster.

If you can deal with your stress and move on, your stress response will recede and your body will go back into balance. But "the kind of stress that’s really damaging is the kind that doesn’t let up," says Susan Andrews, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist and author of the book Stress Solutions for Pregnant Moms: How Breaking Free From Stress Can Boost Your Baby’s Potential. In fact, constant stress could alter your body’s stress management system, causing it to overreact and trigger an inflammatory response.

Inflammation, in turn, has been linked to poorer pregnancy health and developmental problems in babies down the road. "There are some data to show that higher chronic stressors in women and poor coping skills to deal with those stressors may be associated with lower birth weight and with delivering earlier," says Ann Borders, MD, MPH, MSc. She is an OB/GYN in the obstetrics and gynecology department, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, at Evanston Hospital, NorthShore University HealthSystem.

Maternal Stress and the Fetal Brain

Chronic stress may also contribute to subtle differences in brain development that might lead to behavioral issues as the baby grows, she adds.

Research in this area is still early, and doctors still need to figure out the exact link between stress and pregnancy outcomes. Even so, it’s an important factor for pregnant women to consider, especially if they’re dealing with chronic stress -- for example, from financial or relationship troubles.

"We know that we want to think about how to reduce unhealthy stress and find ways to help women have better coping mechanisms to deal with the stress in their lives," Borders says. You shouldn’t feel guilty about stress, she adds, but you should try to control it as much as you can.

Pregnancy Chill Pills

Andrews offers a few ways to manage stress during pregnancy.

Take stock. Talk to your doctor about what’s causing you to feel stressed. Together you can look for solutions, which might include meditation, prenatal yoga, or talk therapy.

Sing a song. Even if you can’t carry a tune, hum in your head. Music helps control cortisol levels.

Relax. Take a warm bath. Have a cup of tea. Curl up with a book. You’ll have precious few chances to pamper yourself once your baby arrives.

Find more articles, browse back issues, and read the current issue of "WebMD Magazine."

Scientists have found out how the stress of the mother during pregnancy affects the diet of the child - Gazeta.

Scientists have found out how the stress of the mother during pregnancy affects the diet of the child - Gazeta.Ru | News

01 July 2022, 10:20

Stress during pregnancy negatively affects a child's dietary preferences and future diet, researchers from Columbia University found. The work was published in the journal Nutrition.

For example, children whose mothers experienced severe stress during pregnancy prefer less healthy foods, especially sour and bitter foods.

“Stress has a negative effect on children's dietary preferences, previously we thought that this was influenced by the mother's diet. It may have long-term detrimental effects on the next generation, as they may suffer from obesity and diseases associated with it, ”the researchers say.

Researchers selected 213 mothers with low socioeconomic status and children aged 2-12 years. Women's stress levels during pregnancy were assessed using a survey that included questions about events that had occurred that could cause severe stress, such as the death of a loved one, relationship difficulties, or money problems.

If this was the case, the mothers were asked to rate how much stress the event caused on a 10-point scale. The researchers then examined the diet of each participant's youngest child. They also looked at children's preferences for five basic tastes - sour, salty, umami (a high-protein taste), bitter, and sweet.

As a result, scientists have identified an association between prenatal exposure to stress and healthy eating habits and nutrition in the child.

Previously, epidemiologists found that the risk of miscarriage increases by 31% in summer — more about this in the Gazeta.Ru article.

Subscribe to Gazeta.Ru in News, Zen and Telegram.
To report a bug, highlight the text and press Ctrl+Enter

News

Zen

Marina Yardaeva

Battle for grades. How to be a loser?

Outsiders in the race for GPA

08:09

Andrey Kolesnikov

What will "above" think?

About four decades without Leonid Ilyich

08.11.2022, 08:37

Georgy Bovt

Do you want a punishment cell or a gramophone?

How and why people sobered up in Russia

07.11.2022, 08:07

Alena Solntseva

Rescuer from the cinema universe

About the Balabanov exhibition and one of his unfinished films

06.11.2022, 11:38

Dmitry Vodennikov

Peace and herring

About the blue color of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin

05. 11.2022, 08:03

Error found?

Thank you for your message, we will fix it soon.

Pregnancy stress threatens the health of the unborn child - DW - 11/07/2013

Vladimir Fradkin

November 7, 2013

It is common knowledge that severe stress is harmful. Now scientists have taken up the question of how the stress experienced by the mother during pregnancy affects the health of the child.

https://p.dw.com/p/1ADc4

Advertising

Pregnancy, even if it is not the first, in itself, of course, is a fair amount of stress. But even if this were not so, hardly any woman manages to avoid the stress caused by various events of everyday life for all nine months. And therefore, almost any expectant mother asks the question: how will the stress she experiences affect the child? Can the fear, pain, grief, irritation, or arousal of the mother be transmitted to the fetus in the womb?

Maternal stress hormone in fetal blood

Not only can they be transmitted, but they must be transmitted, although, of course, still not fully, doctors say. The placenta contains a number of hormones designed to protect the fetus from the harmful effects of cortisol, the mother's stress hormone. But it still penetrates into the blood of the embryo. True, there its concentration is about 10 times lower than the maternal one, however, it is also enough to have a significant effect on the fetal body.

And not just significant, but long-term, often even permanent. This conclusion was reached by a group of doctors led by Professor Matthias Schwab (Matthias Schwab) from the Hans Berger Neurological Clinic at the University Hospital of Jena. The scientists reported the results of their research at the 21st annual session of the German Somnological Society, which took place in Wiesbaden.

“Antenatal stress leads to a long-term increase in fetal cortisol levels and accelerates brain maturation,” says Prof. Schwab, who heads the Intrauterine Brain Development and Later Life Programming of Disease Working Group. “For this reason, the stress experienced by the mother during pregnancy , is a serious risk factor that increases the likelihood of a child developing later depression and other pathologies.

Dreaming of a lamb in the womb of a sheep

Professor Schwab and his colleagues conducted their experiments on sheep, since in these animals the course of pregnancy and the formation of the embryo have a significant similarity with the same processes in humans. Pregnant - that is, pregnant - sheep, the researchers injected betamethasone, a synthetic glucocorticoid drug related to cortisol, which is often prescribed to women with the threat of premature birth. This drug speeds up the development of the lungs in the fetus, which increases the chances of a premature baby to survive. Betamethasone was administered to pregnant sheep at a stage corresponding in pregnant women to the period between the 25th and 32nd weeks.

At the same time, scientists monitored the intrauterine brain activity of embryos using electroencephalography. It turned out that betamethazole accelerates the maturation of not only the lungs, but also the brain, says Professor Schwab: “This is evidenced, first of all, by the early appearance of dreams. Usually, the formation of dreams occurs in the last third of pregnancy, and this development occurs very gradually. And betamethasone literally includes there is some kind of toggle switch in the brain, and dreams are formed in 2-4 days."

Brain development inhibits cell growth and division

Another consequence of the introduction of the hormone was an abnormally frequent alternation of the phases of REM and non-REM sleep. This fragmentation of sleep, if it becomes permanent, indicates a high risk of developing depression later in life and, according to Professor Schwab, is often diagnosed in newborns whose mothers experienced severe stress during pregnancy.

The problem is that the premature maturation of brain structures occurs due to a slowdown in cell division and body growth, the scientist says. This is confirmed by other doctors. "Children given injections to accelerate lung maturation showed a very significant increase in stress axis activity and had a markedly lower birth weight," says Thorsten Braun, a gynecologist at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin.

Therapy with betamethasone is fraught with behavioral disorders

In Germany, 8 to 10 percent of pregnant women receive betamethasone. The fact that this drug reduces mortality among premature babies by 31 percent has long been scientifically proven. However, animal experiments have shown that taking the drug also causes long-term side effects - in particular, hypertension - and also contributes to the development of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in later life.

As for a person, here scientists have identified, first of all, an increased risk of developing depression and behavioral abnormalities. Recently, Professor Schwab and his colleagues examined 40 eight-year-old children who had previously undergone intrauterine therapy with betamethasone. Comparing the test results of these children with the test results of children in the control group revealed significant differences, the scientist emphasizes: ". Electroencephalography also showed that these children could not relax before testing, and could not concentrate during testing.

No reason to panic

Apparently, the increased content of the stress hormone in the blood at the stage of intrauterine development leads to the fact that the body of the embryo gets used to this situation and begins to perceive it as the norm. "These babies are already programmed in the womb to produce too much of the stress hormone later in life," says Professor Schwab.

The Dutch colleagues of the German scientist - doctors at the University of Tilburg - found that maternal stress affects the fetus most negatively between the 12th and 22nd weeks of pregnancy: its consequences make themselves felt even 20 years later.

But still, one should not panic, says Professor Schwab: “Stress during pregnancy is a completely normal thing. And injections of betamethasone, this hormonal accelerator of lung development, are an important and necessary therapy if there are indications for it. You just need to keep in mind that An elevated level of stress hormone in the blood of the embryo seems to play a more important role in the development of later diseases than has been previously believed.