maternal/prenatal stress: argh!

[taffywelsh]

Hello Womyn

This might seem like a crazy cycle, but I am worried about some things I have read about prenatal stress and its effects on fetal brain development. I guess it can have a very negative effect on future cognative development, and even lead to autism.
I have had some very stressful things happen recently, such as a forced move from a great apartment into a less great one, and some landlord strife along the way (the strife was caused by me, since I somehow couldn't help hounding my new landlord about some problems with the apartment). I also had a nervewracking brush with gest. diabetes, which turned out to be a false alarm, but was alarming nevertheless.
I am having a very hard time dealing with my stress, and the yoga class I usually go to is on a break right now. I am crying and having a nervous fit every single day, and my partner is (understandably) getting fed up with my attitude and behavior. The worst part is that these most awful stress events have taken place during the 25-28 gestational week window that is supposed to be the worst for the little baby! Now my window is over, and my recent stress already happened and can't be fixed. I was too stressed to even try to relax! Argh!
My only comfort is that I have been taking 3 fish pills a day, so maybe that will counteract some of the toxic stress hormones that have been messing with my baby's brain development. I also eat very dark chocolate in the hopes of creating some dopamine/oxytocin.
So, I'm really worried that my worry is going to screw up my baby, or already has screwed up my baby. Will somebody please comment on this, either with reassurance (please! I need it) or advice/guidance.
Thanks all

Taffy

[MaerynPearl]

I had an insane amount of stress with DS

I lost a baby before getting pregnant with him... the loss was at 13 weeks so understandably I was terrified of losing him

At 16 weeks, my grandfather died. On the way up to go to his funeral we nearly hit a deer... 2 days later I was in the hospital with a placental abruption (17 weeks) and put on bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy... around 25 weeks my now-ex-husband and I started fighting for pretty much the remainder of the pregnancy... he wanted to give the baby up for adoption!?!?!?!

My son does not have autism or any symptoms of it. (He is nearly 8 and I am sure any of the symptoms would have shown up by now)

I agree that stress is bad for baby but I highly doubt it is quite that bad.

[taffywelsh]

wow thank you Maeryn
Glad to know your boy is ok! Sorry to hear about those stressful things!
I really hope I can get throught this all without freaking (or getting myself evicted for harrassing the landlord etc).
-TW

[aloneinid]

My husband was diagnosed with cancer at age 30 when I was about 25-28 weeks gestation with our oldest son. He underwent surgery and weeks of testing and recovery. In addition, we briefly thought that the type of cancer he had was due to a genetic condition, one that would be passed on to male children, and I was ALREADY pregnant with a baby that we might have unknowingly passed the disease on to (turned out not to be the case, thank goodness). Add that to the stress of having our first baby and me changing careers from a professional to a WAHM in a different field and my stress level was sky high. Our son is completely normal at age 6 now.

I would obviously try to minimize stress, but I am sure you will hear all kinds of stressful things women have been through resulting in normal children!

[Baby~Braatens~Mama]

Originally Posted by aloneinid

I would obviously try to minimize stress, but I am sure you will hear all kinds of stressful things women have been through resulting in normal children!

Exactly! Life is stressfull! Try to relax and enjoy your pregnancy, mama. It is so easy to read to much into all of the things we are reading in the struggle to understand and care for the growing babies in our lives.

Hang in there!

[taffywelsh]

Oh man thanks ladies
It is so sad to hear your troubles but it is helping me have faith that I haven't "ruined" my baby by being stressed.
It is really hard to just relax and enjoy my pregnancy when all kinds of crazy stuff is happening AND then I happen to read that stress messes with their brains. Makes you feel like a double flop.
Anyway I really appreciate you all--especially good to hear tonight, since my partner's team just blew it in the World Cup (Deutschland) and he is in a fit of rage!
--TW

[momtoafireteam]

When I was 32 weeks with my fourth, my XH opened a custody case against me (my oldest is from a previous marriage), totally out of the blue. I *literally* could not sleep, could not eat, the time I wasn't shaking I was crying or vomiting. The days I had to go to court I would vomit so much I could barely stand.

I was very worried about what it was doing to her, and my OB was very supportive of my concerns. However, she was my longest pregnancy, my best delivery, and was nice and chubby and healthy.

Now she is almost four and my most zen, mellow child. She breastfed like a champ and slept through the night at 5 weeks. The *only* thing is that she is very petite and to be honest its crossed my mind that thats because of me, but I think thats just me being silly. She is smart and healthy and incredibly cute.

My OB reminded me of all the babies born in wars who are fine- in fact my DH has an Aunt born in a camp in Poland in the early 40's who is still a perfect specimen of health. Obviously its not ideal and you know that, but all you can do is relax as much as possible. I'm sorry these things are going on in your life. 2

[taffywelsh]

I hope this isn't a faux pas on this forum but...I'm bumping this!
Because...of the stress of being stressed
thanks for understanding!

[WifeofAnt]

If you need to cry, cry! I know if I could and it made me feel better I'd cry every day. In my opinion if you're going to feel the emotions anyway then let them out in a 'safe' way (obviously try not to yell at people or break things). It may not be easy to relax by trying to ignore or supress your emotions but I've found having a controlled breakdown, crying my eyes out in the shower for example, works relatively well at getting it out and over with.

[expat_canuck]

It's my understanding, from reading a lot of literature about anxiety and adhd (things my partner suffers from) that yes, there is some thought out there that maternal/prenatal stress might cause some problems in neural development of the baby. BUT maternal stress is only one of a web of factors that are believe to contribute to these things.

I think, also, in a lot of cases, it is really hard to separate out exact causes for things like poor neural development in a child - and really, if a few episodes of maternal stress were enough to damage a child's developing brain, even if they are really severe -- then most people would be walking around brain damaged....

But, life is stressful!!! Sometimes there's no way to prevent stress. I think if you recognize that you are stressed, and you are taking steps to take as good care of yourself as possible, you are on the right track.

I don't know if this would work for you, but I don't have the money to do the whole hypnobabies thing for this pregnancy, but I did find a free mp3 on the hypnobabies website that is a 30 minute script called "Relax Me" - I have found it really helpful. I definitely find it relaxing, and usually fall asleep before the recording finishes. You can also google for free guided meditation mp3s that might be useful for you as well.

[hollytheteacher]

I remember talking to one of the OB's last time i was pregnant about stress and feeling bad about feeling stressed.

What she said that reassured me the most was that every day women are pregnant/giving birth in countries that are at WAR. If they can have healthy babies in a country that is plagued by war, i'm sure they have a fair amount of stress in their lives, and thankfully most of their babies are okay.

[taffywelsh]

Thanks for these responses...I too have thought about the war angle. There are also floods, fires, and all kinds of other scary things in this world.
I just hope my baby is ok; I can't stop feeling guilty about my stress response to moving.

[LROM]

A really close friend of mine had 2 incredibly serious, tragic things happen during her 1st pregnancy: first her mom died, kind of unexpectedly, which was obviously hugely traumatic. But then her partner was in a really serious motorcycle accident - almost died, broken bones, in traction for ages... so now my friend was pregnant and her partner needed serious care and tending to and her mom was gone... just stress from every angle. And her partner's career was in personal fitness so if she hadn't made a total recovery - which she did eventually - her livelihood would have been totally impacted as well.

Their daughter is now like 8 yrs old and is smart, feisty and energetic as ever! Absolutely no autism or anything like that.

Me, I had housing stress and MAJOR relationship stress during my first pregnancy and my DD is awesome, brilliant (of course I think so, but others tell me that too ), and amazing.

I will say this though: after 2 miscarriages before DD I made a decision that no matter how stressful things got, I'd try to "protect" her in this pg when stress got really bad. Which meant that, when DP and I started fighting or I'd be depressed or I was exhausted from the housing stuff, I kept an ongoing dialogue with her about how she was fine and I'd be fine and no matter how much daddy and mommy were fighting we both adored her and would always love her and be there... basically just tried to say the things I'd say if she'd already been born. ANd I spent a lot of time trying to create peace and safety even among the chaos. I spent a lot of time massaging her and talking to her and having DP talk to her calmly. Also went for a lot of walks.

It's hard to do, but I think she benefitted from that committment. Interestingly, I find that even as a small baby, and also now at 19 mo, when I was super stressed about something and REALLY needed some time to do something or process something, she suddenly became this zen little buddha baby just hanging out quietly, which isn't what she was usually like, but it was like she knew (from in utero) when mommy was really really stressed and needed a time out, and she just hung out and watched me and amused herself until I could be more present again. I try to make sure that almost never happens, but you can't control those times sometimes......

[donutmolly]

My last pregnancy was probably the most stressful period in my entire life -- and I was constantly stressing that my stress would injure my baby... or create a colicky high needs kiddo that I wouldn't have the patience to deal with once she was born. (DD1 had colic and it was very difficult for me... so I knew what I could be in for...).

Despite all of that, my 3rd baby is the sweetest, most easygoing child I could imagine. I was even surprised that babies could be so content (my first 2 were not...). And she is definitely meeting all her milestones, and very, very interested in interacting with everyone she meets. All more anecdotal evidence that high stress does not necessarily harm babies!

[dakotablue]

I just wanted to add that some of this research is not really clear in causation. For example a Mom who was stressed during the pregnancy and then has a high needs baby and is stress out all the time. OR was her pregnancy normal and then the high needs baby made a dark cloud over the whole experience.

Then tie that to children with disabilities sometimes present with issues early on (such as sensory issues) are difficult babies.

AND then you have a high stressed Mom during pregnancy and a mellow baby which makes the mom have a rainbow idea over the whole experience.

So which came first, the chicken or the egg? and Whose testimony are we to believe? I mean even doctors notes are skewed to how the person was feeling in that moment.

No true study (record how you feel through out pregnancy then follow up years later) has been done.

I hate statistic because of this very fact. I was just reading today about VBAC and increased uterine rupture during the increase us of Oxycontin and Cervadyl (sp?) Which led to a bunch of Doctors blaming prior C's rather than other factors which have since proven to increase risk.

Hope this helps!