We are al well aware that stress is an unfortunate fact of life that we will all go through. As mentioned above, pregnancy especially for new parents can add a whole lot more stress into your life. However even when everything is alright, stress in pregnancy stems from long term stress. It can affect your baby.

It has been shown through research that cortisol, the stress hormone, is found in large amounts even in the seventh week of pregnancy. When the levels of cortisone are high in the mothers blood, they are also high in the amniotic fluid, there is a direct correlation of your stress levels, to what your baby will feel.

Cortisol isn’t always bad and can help your body deal with a stressful situation. However, long term effect of stress onto the fetus is relatively unknown. In adults, it can lead to illness, depression, exhaustion and many more conditions. This of course then can greatly affect your health. Some symptoms including high blood pressure, ulcers and heart disease.

There has been so research that has found that the cognitive ability of the baby is affected, early and later in life. Babies that were exposed to high levels of cortisol during pregnancy has much lower IQs at 18 months old. This is a big problem and can be avoided. It has also been suggested that a high level of cortisol in a fetus can lead to the development of attention deficit disorder, which can leave your child with a lot of learning problems later in life

In saying that, a little bit of stress won’t hurt your baby. Just because you feel a bit bad one day doesn’t mean the worst. You should do things to lower your stress, and one of those things is to monitor your baby. Heart rate is a great indicator of stress, as when it is higher the heart rate is generally also elevated. Get a baby heartbeat monitor and check your babies heart rate often, this will give you peace of mind and will lower your stress during pregnancy.