im pregnant..will stress have any effect on the baby?

Answer 1

Yep, definately. Stress on your body inhibits it from working properly. Some women miscarry in the even of prolonged stress. I know I am under enormous stress and will be for the continuing months and I know what if feels like to have stress tear through my body, it's not pretty. I just know that if I don't manage it I could miscarry becuase my body will feel unable to carry my baby. Keeping calm is important. This is the most crucial time to let things bounce off you and heed only to the importants things in life like taking care of your body. With stress that you feel that makes your heart pound and/or race, once the baby has a beating heart, this will make the babys heart pound just like yours. The calmer you are the calmer the baby is and he/she will be able to grow and live well so he/she is ready to come out and come out healthy.

Answer 2

stress effects each woman differently. I would say to limit your stress in any way you can since you are pregnant.

When I was pregnant with my son I was stressed most of the time. The house we lived in turned from a nice quiet house with good neighbors living below us and the other apt on our floor. When those 2 apts moved out within a year the house had turned into a drug house. The kids in the unit below us were smoking pot below our bedroom window and our living room windows very frequently. The man who moved into the unit on our floor after our old neighbor had passed away was loud, rude and abnoxious. He had a friend who never took off his cowboy boots and considering there wasn't a rug or carpet in the place, it was mighty loud hearing him thumping across the floor anytime of the day or night. The loud music and all day and night parties that went on from that same unit. We would come home from prenatal class to a loud party just when it was time we were going to bed. The party was always going on in the room right next to our bedroom. The unit downstairs a couple moved in, she had a drug problem and got him started on crack before she left him and moved herself out of the apt. Within a month he was having crack parties all weekend long 24 hours a day. When I was about 2-3 weeks from my due date someone downstairs overdosed and died there. My landlord drove me to my prenatal appt that I was then late for because of talking to him outside, he let us out of our lease with 30 days. Now for more stress, moving in 1 month, no time to look for a place, no time to pack anything, 2 days before my due date we found a place, put down the last month rent and signed the papers. I went 10 days late so we were moving stuff the day after I got home from the hospital.

I would say that stress can harm the baby, but it isn't always lasting. My son is healthy and happy, most days. My stress right through my pregnancy doesn't seem to have had a lasting effect on him, or at least not one that has come out yet.

Answer 3

Seeds of health are planted even before you draw your first breath, and that the nine short months of life in the womb shape your health as long as you live." These words of Sharon Begley and William Underhill in a Newsweek article Shaped By Life In The Womb eloquently describe the importance of the gestational period on an individual for his or her life-time.

Some scientists now believe that the effect of the life in the womb on emotional and physical health may be greater than that of the genes we inherit. The conditions in the uterus, ranging from mother's hormones to the nutrients supplied through the placenta, may significantly determine how a baby's liver, heart, kidneys, brain and mind will function during the adulthood.

In the Seventies and the Eighties, we learned that if mothers during pregnancy ingested such substances as the alcohol, cocaine, caffeine, and tobacco, they could harm their babies' physical and mental health, notably, lower the birth weight, height, and head circumference, and impair attention, memory, intelligence, and temperament. Likewise, we have known for a while that if a mother experiences excessive stress or suffers from an emotional trauma, her baby may be born with certain deficiencies which may persist into adulthood and cause more complications.

In the Nineties, we are beginning to understand how the stress and mother's emotional state affects her unborn baby. Take, for example, a stress hormone called Cortisol. When we are under stress, we manufacture cortisol. If you experience occasional stress, cortisol doesn't create a problem. However, if you remain under stress for a long time, cortisol may be too much for your body to handle. Cortisol can cause high blood pressure problems. A mother's excessive Cortisol can reach the baby in the womb and raise the baby's set point for blood pressure forever. This baby, when reach adulthood, is likely to suffer from high blood pressure.

Many mothers during pregnancy face extremely stressful circumstances. They are confronted with such unhealthy situations as the break-up of their marriage, physical or emotional abuse, open infidelity or simply disinterested and uninvolved partners who prefer staying out to staying home and supporting their pregnant partners. These mothers experience constant stress, shame, loneliness and, sometimes, clinical depression during pregnancy or after giving birth.

The babies of these mothers are exposed to a variety of stress hormones, toxins and malnutrition inside the womb. Some of these babies will continue to live in the same or often worse noxious environment. No wonder some will later become hyperactive, underactive, inattentive, or temperamental and exhibit poor self-control. Many of these children are later medicated with Ritalin or antidepressants. Not everyone understands that the problems a child exhibits today may have resulted from events that occurred several years ago.

Most of the gynecologists and obstetricians I have talked with are psychologically sensitive and recognize when their patients need psychological support. However, when referred for therapy, many feel embarrassed and hardly ever show up for psychological consultation. Their partners or families may not encourage them to seek help because the problem it is not seen as a medical one. Doctors are understandably reluctant to prescribe psychiatric medications because of pregnancy or breast-feeding considerations.

Thus, a woman in such a situation suffers alone and remains isolated from her support system. She is expected to transcend all such adverse circumstances, and some do. Others don't have the emotional strengths to cope. Some have struggled with depression and anxiety all their lives. Moreover, even when they are seemingly coping with the excessive stress, they might still be constantly producing stress hormones and toxins and some will reach the baby in the womb.

Maternal stress during pregnancy is also found to cause of asymmetry in coordination of ears, fingers, feet, elbows, etc. As a result, I.Qs of such children are found to be lower. Maternal stress is also linked with imperfections in the developing nervous system which can lead to problems of perception, thinking, and memory.

All of us want happy children. Happy children grow out of happy babies. Happy babies are born to happy mothers. Therefore, partners, families and friends of expectant mothers should do their best to make an expectant mother happy and relaxed. If she is depressed, nervous, or tense, encourage her to seek help.

Answer 4

it can only if there is so much stress our not eating or sleeping properly or taking care of yourslef. normal stress is okay.

Answer 5

yes ! take it easy!stress can leave you on bed rest or premature birth .relax and take it easy.