What Men Need To Know About Pregnancy – When Kevin Gruenberg’s wife was pregnant, he was anxious, irritable and preoccupied with the thought of his growing belly. He constantly thought about a family story, since his mother was pregnant with him, and his Father gained weight at the same time. In 2014, three decades later, Gruenberg had a similar experience, though it went beyond overeating. And even though she’s a psychologist in Los Angeles, she didn’t know where to turn for help.

Gruenberg, who today runs an organization that runs programs to support fathers called Love, Dad, felt tormented by his friends. Discouraged and alone, he began researching Kuwad syndrome, in which men experience Symptoms of Pregnancy. It was, he said, something he “definitely felt psychologically and physiologically.”

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It first appeared in a book by the British anthropologist, Edward Barnett Tylor, in 1865. It comes from the French word

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, to progeny or to produce. In its earliest documentation in the scientific literature, male pregnancy symptoms were considered purely psychosomatic. Today, the loose definition of the syndrome means that it is difficult to track its prevalence. But kuwad, as it is commonly called, has taken off in the United States, China, Thailand and other countries, according to Arthur Brennan, a British labor and delivery nurse turned lecturer at Kingston University, in the United Kingdom.

Brennan first became interested in kuwad when he was completing his master’s degree. He heard anecdotal reports from fathers about “phantom pregnancies” and read a paper on the subject, then decided to investigate. In 2007, he published a small study of 14 men at a London teaching hospital. The fathers-to-be had various ailments, including stomach problems, appetite problems and various pains. Many of them reported that their symptoms occurred in conjunction with their partner’s symptoms.

“I was throwing up and gagging a lot and couldn’t keep anything down,” said one man. “I was constantly hungry and had an unstoppable craving for chicken korma and paddams. Even in the early hours of the morning, I would get up and get ready,” said another subject. In this paper and subsequent research, the list of symptoms seems to include almost everything: diarrhea, constipation, leg cramps, sore throat, depression, insomnia, weight gain, weight loss, fatigue, toothache, gum pain .

Symptoms also seemed to follow a pattern similar to physical pregnancy: peaking in the first and third trimesters, and in many cases disappearing after the child is born. Some symptoms did not appear at all at first; some continued after childbirth. Regardless of when the cuvado arrived, it seemed to carry a stigma. “In the UK, the syndrome appears to attract little interest and men who exhibit its symptoms are usually ignored, ridiculed or remain undiagnosed,” Brennan wrote.

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However, the symptoms continue to appear. In 2019, during his wife’s second pregnancy, Washington Wizards NBA player Bradley Beal went public about how food cravings and weight gain left him drained and embarrassed when his partner was pregnant. . “I was up at 3 and 4 in the morning eating ice cream when I shouldn’t be eating ice cream,” Bill told NBC. “It’s all because mom was pregnant and I had the same symptoms.” Men also post similar experiences on Reddit’s r/predaddit forum. “There are days when I wake up violently sick and can’t keep anything down all morning,” wrote one poster. “Otherwise I don’t feel sick, just vomiting.” So much vomiting… Maybe it’s all in my head.” In 2016, Carlos Williams, an NFL player for the Buffalo Bills at the time, said he was plagued by extra weight gain after the birth of his fourth child. He attributed his poor performance in the game to a “pregnancy injury”.

Many fringe theories have been put forward to explain the cuvado. There is a Freudian one: pregnancy envy. And the psychosocial explanation: the marginalized father demands attention. But these men know they are not really pregnant. The enduring mystery of their symptoms reveals something deeper: becoming a father changes a man’s identity, emotions, even hormones. Our society misunderstands that transformation.

Think about the moment when the child is born and how much hospital norms have changed since fathers stay outside the delivery room. “For so much of human history, men were basically off limits,” says Darby Saxbe, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California who studies families. Now fathers are there to deliver; they have skin-to-skin contact with the newborn baby to bond.

But some outdated gender assumptions persist in society. “We’re celebrating a vision of high-testosterone, aggressive, masculine men, and that’s inconsistent with the parental role,” Saxbe told me. Men don’t always think to tell their doctors they’ve become fathers, and medical forms don’t always ask. Men’s experiences with postpartum depression (an unresearched condition in men that lacks a clear definition) can be considered common concerns of the new father.

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Fatherhood is also physiologically transformative. Saxbe’s research shows that becoming a father is associated with declines in testosterone levels in men, and those declines are associated with greater investment on the part of the father. Hormonal changes may explain fathers’ weight gain, as well as their pre- and postnatal depression. (However, it is not clear whether the hormones produce these effects or vice versa; the research is in its early stages.)

Many academics I spoke to seemed skeptical of some of the more extreme symptoms of kuwad—those more often caricatured in pop culture—such as a large, swollen belly and labor pains. But they thought that certain symptoms could be explained by studies of hormones, for a simple reason: our hormones generally sync with other people in our environment. “The research on kuwad is not well established,” Saxbe said. “I haven’t seen a ton of evidence of a cute pregnancy. What I see are patterns of association [between partners’ psychological and physiological states],” she said.

Brennan believes that hormone studies could be the most fruitful research areas for trying to explain the cuvado. It stands to reason that if men’s testosterone levels drop, changes will occur in their bodies. “The hormonal components of the syndrome during the three trimesters of pregnancy in men would definitely benefit from further study,” he told me via email.

Another psychologist, Daniel Singley, who runs a therapy practice called the Center for Male Excellence that focuses specifically on men and couples, believes that many of the symptoms of couwad can also be explained by society’s approach to men’s mental health. “As a society, we punish men and boys for depression or anxiety or really any mental health issues,” he told me. “Some men will somatize and turn depression into ‘I just feel like I have a weight on me or gastrointestinal issues.’ My stomach is upset. I’m getting a migraine. I have muscle tension.” After having her own child, Singley experienced unwanted intrusive thoughts, which can be a symptom of postpartum depression in women. Like many I spoke to, he then turned his attention to helping other fathers.

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For their part, the men I spoke to who experienced couvad symptoms did not believe they were actually on the verge of having a child. Instead, they described being at sea from their own body and mind, with no one to turn to. Gruenberg, the psychologist, didn’t think there was a professional who could help him, so he started his own support groups. Another man I spoke to in the UK, Scott Mair, was struggling in the run-up to the birth of his seven children. During his wife’s pregnancy and after giving birth, he experienced abdominal pain as well as back, shoulder and neck fatigue. He was tired and lost his appetite. He was sent to the hospital and increased his intake of painkillers. Merr said he was seeing a great doctor, but the doctor didn’t connect these symptoms to his experience as a father. It was only after the particularly traumatic birth of his seventh child that he finally sought help and found someone who ran a postpartum depression workshop for fathers.

A few years ago, a friend’s husband told me that in the hospital when his wife gave birth, there were no resources for him: no food, no place to sleep, no one to talk to him. I thought he was being selfish, seemingly upset that the woman’s pregnancy wasn’t all about him. But looking back, I think he regretted something real: that society was telling him he had no place in the family.

However, as research on couvad has developed, the syndrome has been reconstructed. Brennan believes that the stigma around her is changing in tandem with the role of fathers. “In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the syndrome and the importance of men taking a more active role in their partner’s pregnancy and preparing for it,” he said. “Indeed, those who exhibit the syndrome are now commonly perceived to be compassionate toward their pregnant partners.”

Some researchers now hypothesize that the more a father is involved in raising children, the more his mind and body can

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