Emotions During Pregnancy
QUESTION
Dear Midwife,
My sister is 32 years old and 35-weeks pregnant. The last 2 months, she and my mother have been arguing really bad. They have never fought other than through the teenage years and have loved each other always. Being the oldest brother and son, and almost being put in the middle of this, I do have one question.
A lot like postpartum depression, is there some condition or clinical term for emotional loss of control during pregnancy? She hasn't been a real great wife these last 5-6 weeks either. Her husband is afraid to go home from work and this is not like Lisa at all.
I would appreciate anything that you can offer that might help. I can't imagine that this whole thing is doing any good for the baby. I am the father of 6 children from two wives and both marriages had wonderful pregnancies.
ANSWER
There are women whose hormones go out of control during pregnancy and shortly thereafter who are perfectly normal otherwise. These women do very well if they are properly medicated, and very poorly otherwise.
Your sister and/or her husband should report her symptoms to her provider asap and she should get the help she needs. This condition will only get worse without intervention. Good luck.
-- Cynthia, CNM
Cynthia Flynn
Cynthia Flynn, CNM. PhD, is the General Director of the Family Health and Birth Center which provides prenatal, birth, postnatal, gynecological and primary health care to underserved women and their families in Washington, D.C. Recently Cynthia served as Associate Professor of Nursing at Seattle University. There she not only taught, but remained in full scope clinical midwifery practice at Valley Medical Center where she cared for pregnant and birthing women, and practices well-woman gynecology, family planning, and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
Cynthia founded Columbia Women's Clinic and Birth Center, where she took care of pregnant women and infants up to two weeks of age and attended both birth center and hospital births. Before Cynthia earned her CNM, she worked as a registered nurse in labor and delivery and postpartum and is a certified Doula and Doula trainer.
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Comments
Really?
Are you kidding me? A woman can't be grumpy during her pregnancy without being told to seek medical help? Puh-leeze.
A woman has a right to be grumpy any time she feels like it, especially during pregnancy, and those around her should be loving and supportive enough to put up with it! And when you take into account the raging hormones, the constant discomfort and pain, the fatigue and sleeplessness, the worry about labor, the anxiety over being a good mother, braxton-hicks contractions, people rubbing your huge belly, and every other irritation that pregnancy entails, it is amazing that pregnant women can ever manage to be pleasant to those around them.
Give us a break! Especially all you men who will never in your lives experience anything comparable to what we women are going through in these 9 months.