If there’s a time that is a whirlwind of changes, it is pregnancy. Your body undergoes a wide array of different hormonal ups and downs all at one go. It is no easy task bringing in someone new into the world and despite everyone being there for you, you might still feel like you’re not ready to welcome your change. This might lead to stress. There are so many things to worry about and you will rather not let your mind down. Stress isn’t an uncommon phenomenon during pregnancy. It is the troubles that lead to difficulties.
Issues that stress can lead to are sleeplessness, high blood pressure, heart disease. Not just you, stress can be harmful to your child as well. And chances are stress could lead to a premature delivery and weight issues in your child. You wouldn’t want that. So let’s talk of what causes the stress in particular and how to reduce it during pregnancy.
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What Causes Stress During Pregnancy?
Although different for different women, stress can have common disorders like insomnia, difficulty breathing and discomforts like nausea, constipation, backache, so on and so forth. You are dealing with quite the level of hormones, which causes your mood to change, making it even harder for you to handle all that stress. Chances are you are usually worried about what you might do to take better care of your baby and what you should expect if you are to go in labor. Asides this, other reasons for your stress might include your job and your responsibility in taking your company further. Of course life doesn’t stop just because you are pregnant. You just have to relax and get through it.
What Types of Stress Can Cause Pregnancy Problems?
Stress isn’t too hard to handle and sometimes your ability to handle stress takes you on a better motherhood experience. There are different types of stress. Some are regular ones owing to your work deadlines or maybe just random sitting and waiting in traffic.
It is the serious ones that pose threats and issues for you and your child. Women can have healthy babies but beware of the areas of stress and avoid them on a whole.
1) Negative Events In Life:
Pregnancy might be a difficult time since your employer might ask you to stay home and rest. You might find it difficult to adapt to the changes. To add to this there can be other negativity like illness, divorce or death in the family. Try to get through explaining yourself how it’s just a phase.
2) Catastrophic Events:
This type of stress usually include issues not under your control, like earthquakes, hurricane etc. You get worked up about survival, paying minimal attention to your health.
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3) Long-Term Stress:
This one has been around for a while, and you haven’t yet decided on a way to deal with it. Common causes include financial troubles, mental or physical abuse or depression.
4) Racism:
Although a rather strange type, it is quite the cause. Imagine you yourself being treated different than others. You’d of course be worried about the same behavior towards your child.
5) Others:
This might include past issues, nightmares, PTSD, alcohol and having trouble quitting. You might want to take professional help for this one, since it could affect your child in a very wrong way.
It is hard to comprehend the exact effects of pregnancy. Serious and long time stress might even affect your immune system, leading to complications. It is way better if you can try and deal with it and come out with flying colours.
Effect of Stress During Pregnancy On Your Child In The Future:
Nothing is proven yet, but studies do show high levels of stress leading to issues like emotional troubles in the child. He may also suffer from loss of concentration and a weak immune system.
How Can You Reduce Stress During Pregnancy?
- Figuring out how to fight stress is a crucial thing to do once you hold the ‘I am stressed’ banner. Talking to a friend or your partner or your health care provider is the ideal thing to do, since nothing gets better than seeking support from the people who are concerned about you.
- If the stress is owing to discomfort, talk to your doctor, who is your best bet and will probably work it all out.
- Staying healthy is the key. Try to eat well and get plenty of sleep through the day.
- Everyone knows the benefits of exercising. Light exercising during pregnancy will help you reduce your pain, thus making life all better for you again.
- The activities you don’t need should be cut back on, at least until you are in a better frame of mind.
- Try the art of relaxing with some prenatal yoga and silent meditation.
- Your health care provider should know of other moms going through the same dilemma. Talk to them and suggest each other ways to deal with stress. Coming up with new ideas in a group discussion isn’t too bad.
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Try to control your stress as much as you can and you will never have to add on more stress about what your pregnancy outcomes will be. An important factor would be to categorize your stress as to if its due to family troubles, chronic stress, financial issues or maybe something entirely else. That should make it easier for you to deal with it in the long run, thus bringing little harm to either you or your child.
A little amount of stress while pregnant is of course allowable, since that what all moms go through. However, a constant source of stress isn’t really desirable and you should be willing to do all it takes to get through your pregnancy in a healthy happy way.
