You, Your Unborn Baby And Stress

Being pregnant can be one of the most wonderful times in a woman's life as well as one of the most terrifying.

There you are, carrying a real live, tiny person inside you. The awesome responsibility of it can naturally cause a lot of stress. Pregnancy and the prospect of becoming a mother can become overwhelming for many women when having to cope with the many other daily pressures of life.

Even though it's only natural for you to feel stressed out when you are pregnant it poses some real dangers for both you and your baby. New research shows that women who suffer chronic or severe stress during pregnancy are more likely to pass on illnesses or other problems to their unborn children than women with lower stress levels.

Stress Can Penetrate Nature's Defenses

Babies in the womb are supposed to be insulated from their mothers' stress by the placenta. It generally acts as a barrier so that stress hormones and other harmful substances cannot get to the baby. But new findings reveal that in the case of too much stress or a malfunction of the placenta the baby's health can be greatly impacted despite this barrier.

The stress hormone that everyone has to deal with is called cortisol. This is the hormone that's behind our fight or flight response. Cortisol is actually helpful when stress levels are normal. But when there is an overload of stress increased levels of cortisol can make for big problems like high blood pressure.

And if you are a severely stressed mother-to-be you may be passing on too much cortisol to your baby. This can lead to low birth weight, high blood pressure, diabetes, and reproductive problems among many other things. In fact, if your child develops reproductive problems as an adult it may be an example of the effects of stress crossing into the next generation.

Guilt Is Not A Helpful Response

As difficult as it may be, it's important not to take this message as a knock on yourself. It's hard being pregnant and coping with everything else you have to deal with. On top of everything else many expectant mothers continue to work until the very late stages. Sadly, many employers remain unsympathetic about pregnancy and this is yet another factor that can increase stress levels.

So even though many things that cause you stress are beyond your control you surely want to protect your baby and do everything possible to minimize the dangers. Chronically high stress levels are obviously not healthy for you and now the research shows that it's not healthy for your baby either. While it's normal and even necessary to feel some levels of stress, you do need to take action to protect your child from the worst excesses.

Just Relax… Easier Said Than Done!

You'll often hear the experts advise that it's important to relax when you are stressed out. If only it were so easy! It is also important to understand that relaxation alone is not enough to reduce stress on a long-term basis. It can help you cope with a temporary situation but you need a more proactive form of stress management to make a lasting difference.

One of the most effective things you can do to de-stress yourself and to keep from passing the negative effects on to your baby is to use a new method called slow breathing with music. This technique is ideal for pregnancy because it takes only 15 minutes a day just a few times a week... all the benefits - and more - of yoga in a fraction of the time.

Music and Breathing: A Life-Changing Combination

Slow breathing with music is unique because it combines two effective stress reduction techniques. And because it is more active than other merely passive forms of relaxation its effects can accumulate and become long-lasting. In fact, slow breathing with music is clinically proven powerful enough to reduce high blood pressure, even in chronic and resistant cases.

The beauty of this method is that not only does it treat you to fantastic relief from the stress of pregnancy but your baby will love it too! It's well known that babies react to music in the womb but they also find the rhythmic motion of slow breathing extremely comforting.

Your stress hormone levels will be drastically reduced and the effects could be positively life changing. In addition to almost instant stress relief for both of you, slow breathing with music can drastically lower the risk of passing along things like hypertension and diabetes to your unborn child. In fact, beyond basic health and nurture this could be the single most important thing you do for your baby's present and future health.

While you don't have control over many of the stresses in life you do have control over how you choose to deal with it. This is terribly important because the evidence is growing that high stress levels can have a negative impact on your unborn child. Effective stress reduction techniques like slow breathing with music will help you to leave your guilt and worries behind.

Click here to learn more about a wonderful way to reduce stress and prevent high blood pressure during pregnancy.