Stressing about pregnancy bad for baby?

March 31, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

Pregnancy-specific anxiety may be worse for a baby than normal stress according to modern research.

Pregnant women are commonly told to relax and reduce stress with the belief that life’s everyday stresses could harm the baby. But it may not be normal daily stress that does its worst.

Modern research is finding that pregnant women who say they are managing daily stress actually aren’t harming their baby that much. But when it comes to stressing about the pregnancy itself, woman may be doing more harm than they think.

“Most of my patients are so anxious it’s outrageous,” Laura Riley, medical director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital, told the Wall Street Journal.

“It’s amazing how many people will come to my office and say, ‘I’ve read that stress is very bad for pregnancy, and I’m all stressed out.”‘ Riley goes on to tell her patients: “Now you’re all stressed-out about being stressed. This is just not helpful.”

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine recently published study results in the journal Child Development concerning an independent link between early “pregnancy-specific anxiety” and lower cognitive development scores in one year olds.

A 2009 study published in Infant and Child Development found that anxiety related to the pregnancy could be linked to temperamental problems in infants afterwards.

While its not fully understood how this specific type of anxiety is linked to the health of the child, obstetricians are increasingly telling their patients to not stress about the pregnancy itself. Many are recommending a special program called Centering Pregnancy.

Sharon Rising, the executive director of the Centering Healthcare Institute, told the Wall Street Journal that nearly 300 medical facilities in the U.S. are offering Centering Pregnancy groups. These groups gather pregnant women at or near the same point in pregnancy to first receive normal medical checkups and then huddle together to talk about their pregnancy concerns.

In 2007, a group of researchers looked at over 1,000 women who attended such groups and found that they were a third less likely to suffer a preterm birth. Additional research into maternal stress reduction has found similar results.

In light of such research, many researchers are suggesting women gain increased stress resiliency before they become pregnant. Learning how to stop worrying about the pregnancy itself and deal with problems with adversity makes it more likely that baby will be born with fewer problems.