Do you think your stress level during pregnancy can affect baby's personality?

Re: Do you think your stress level during pregnancy can affect baby's personality?

• Dobie_Mama

  January 2010

  My boss swears it does.  Her boss was very hard to work with during her second pregnancy & her daughter from that pregnancy is a very high-strung little girl.

  I have no idea.  I was very laid back when PG with DD.  She was a wreck of a high needs baby but one of the most laid back toddlers I know.
  

  
  
  

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• Shayna0182 member

  January 2010

  Truthfully, I do think your stress level can eventually have impacts.   Do I think that it's any coincidence that when my son was born, my company has been talking layoffs for 2 months prior, and my blood pressure was going crazy.  I went into labor at 33 weeks 1 day before the terminations started in my office.  That was some serious stress though, and it went on for months.  I don't think every day worry that you're baby is ok is really going to hurt the baby.  Just relax, your baby will be fine!

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• embersoul

  January 2010

  Absolutely!! You're not crazy! I see the evidence of this in my job all the time.

  ALL the time.  
  

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• jdubyadee member

  January 2010

  I think it's just new age hype. ?I work with a lot of women who have been super stressed out during their pregnancies and their kids are fine. ?High blood pressure and other physical effects of stress may have an impact on the baby in the short term, but I don't think you are programming your child to be stressed for life. ?

  ?

  Just my 2 cents.?

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• swedish-fish

  January 2010

  thanks for the feedback, ladies!  I guess I should just mellow out regardless.  I'm just waiting for the news to sink in a bit more, I guess

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• BelhurstBride member

  January 2010

  I was actually just reading research on this yesterday. The article was talking about a specific hormone that is increased when you are stressed. The hormone can be passed to the baby and may effect how the baby handles stressors years later.

  They injected animals who had not yet been put in a stressful situation with this specific hormone and watched their reaction. The animals who had been injected got even more stressed out when presented with a stressor than the animals who had not been previously injected with the hormone.

  They also mentioned something about unborn children whose mother's went through a difficult relationship during pregnancy, later in life had a history of difficult relationships. (Even though the mother removed herself from the situation prior to the child being born.)  I don't remember the rest of the specifics on that one, though.

  DD1 4.14.10
  DD2 8.22.13
  MMC 1.4.17 at 16w
  Expecting #3, EDD 1.29.18
  
  

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• dany2006 member

  January 2010

  I think your stress level could have an impact physically on your pregnancy, but I don't think it's likely to impact the baby's personality. I think genetics and home environment probably explains more why type-A people tend to have type-A kids (or, in my family's case, I seem to have inherited my dad's type-A personality while my brother inherited my mom's laid-back style).
  

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• mrs.kapow

  January 2010

  I have to think your personality in general affects your baby -- if you're a super stressed out human being, your baby is going to get that sense both in utero and as soon as he or she is born. I can only imagine a stressful person is going to have a high strung child for the most part, but probably more from their daily interactions than from how they were in their pregnancy.
  

  
  

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• ValAndRyan

  January 2010

  IDK really. With my son, I was super stressed. I was 19, broke up with the dad, got mono, worked full time, went to school full time and graduated two weeks before I delivered. He's very mellow.
  

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• me92603

  January 2010

  My dad died when I was 8 weeks pg with my 1st.  I gave birth 1 month early and he was born with a collapsed lung.  I don't think that the stress of my dad's passing had anything to do with it. 

  Think about those woman in Africa who are on their feet all day with a young one tied to their backs and worry about what they are going to feed their kids....thats stress.  I think our bodies are amazing and can handle more than we think.

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