Stress in Early Pregnancy Linked to Miscarriage
Pregnant women who are stressed out during the first three weeks after conception are nearly three times as likely to miscarry, a new study finds.
The NIH team evaluated 61 women over 12 months, collecting each woman’s urine three times a week to check for pregnancy status and levels of cortisol, a stress-linked hormone.
Of the 61 women, 22 got pregnant. Nine carried to term and 13 miscarried. Women with increased cortisol levels during the first three weeks of pregnancy were 2.7 times more likely to miscarry, the researchers found.
In all, miscarriages occurred in 90 percent of pregnancies in which the women had increased cortisol levels and in 33 percent of those with normal cortisol levels.
In my opinion, articles like this do more harm than good. Women are going to worry more now, further stressing themselves out. I was super nervous my entire first trimester, especially those very early weeks……and now I have a beautiful and healthy (knock on wood) 8 month old.
