When I had the severe bleeding during my 28th week of pregnancy, I was terribly afraid that the bleeding will cause harm to my baby. However, what the paediatrician (who attended to me even before the birth of my son) told me surprised me. She told me that the bleeding will prompt the baby to grow faster and cause his lungs to develop faster. She explained to me that when the mother is in Stress (as in losing a lot of blood), the body sense an impending danger and cause the baby to fasten up his development. (Of course, my ob-gyane prescribed steroids jabs to help with the lungs development).

Therefore, I found this news from BBC to be rather encouraging:

Moderate stress during pregnancy does not harm the unborn child but can instead aid its later advancement, US research suggests.

The team asked 137 healthy women with low-risk, normal pregnancies to report on their stress between the 24th and 32nd week of pregnancy.

The study in Child Development found the children of those who reported more stress were more advanced at age two.

Of course, I am not suggesting that pregnant mothers stressed themselves out unnecessarily but if we are one stressed out mom of few other older children/toddler and are pregnant again, just take it easy. A little stress won’t harm us, ok?

Research author development psychologist Professor Janet DiPietro said: “We thought maybe they would show some signs of being difficult or of emotional dysfunction. Instead we found the reverse was true.”

There were two possible explanations for this, she said.

Women who have high stress levels would be generating more of the stress hormone cortisol.

It is one of the chemicals produced naturally in the body when stress triggers a ‘fight or flight’ response.

“Cortisol has a bad rap as the stress hormone – but every organ in the body needs cortisol to develop properly.

“It could be enhancing the development of organs before birth,” said Professor DiPietro.

But moms, take note of this remark:

However the children of women who had reported negative feelings about being pregnant appeared to show poorer behavioural and emotional regulation.

So, remember not to be negative. Your kid may sense it and who knows, he/she will come out hating the idea that he/she wasn’t welcome.

Read the full article at BBC Health

Originally posted 2006-05-17 21:48:58.