bad moods/short temper....am I damaging the baby??

[DangerMousey]

I am 24+4 and am having a pretty bad week....work is really stressful and I got robbed on Monday (had my bag snatched on the street).

All of the admin stuff to replace my stolen cards/wallet etc feels like so much hassle, and when a delivery got fucked up last night, I totally lost it - basically had a massive temper tantrum like a 3 yo. I even threw a plate and smashed it. And then cried for about half an hour. .

I have always struggled with my temper/short fuse and know I have some issues that I need to sort out, but I am really worried that the baby will have heard/felt what happened last night and that in some way I have damaged him, emotionally ...Will he be ok? This is now making me feel even more worried/anxious/stressed. I don't want the thing he remembers from the womb to be the sound of his mum crying .

Just looking for some reassurance really that I've not screwed up this whole motherhood thing before it's even started.

Nope. You won't have damaged baby.

I do think you need someone to talk to though, even though your feelings are normal, as your hormones are running wild.

No of course not!

When you are stressed you get cortisol (stress hormone) going around your body - this gives the nervous system of you and baby stimulation (fight or flight response, increased heart rate etc) and needs to be processed out for things to return to a state of calm. This takes longer for the baby than you, however advice is it is akin to other things which raise heart rate etc temporarily, such as running for the bus.

Cortisol going around your system for a spell, does no long term damage. If levels of it remain high for prolonged and extended periods you can get chronic stress, but it would take more than one bad week for that.

The sound of you crying won't be associated with distress by the baby, so don't worry - you aren't giving baby bad memories - even older babies have little concept of other peoples emotions, do not feel the empathy you need to be able to understand it is distress. So at 24 weeks your foetus won't be taking that on board, in fact the frontal lobe which is the bit which controls emotions etc doesn't develop until later in the pregnancy so it literally doesn't yet have the capacity to be affected by your tears just now.

Obviously you don't want the stress to keep going for a long time, and certainly if you are a short tempered person it might be worth trying to find ways to manage that before baby arrives, as your patience may be well tested then...

But you have not hurt your baby now, he/she is tucked up safe and warm and that is all that matters for it just now.

HTH

You are obviously a caring mum already - and that goes a long way you know. :)

If bad temper in pregnancy caused damage to babies human race would have died out bloody ages ago. That's just some old heap of twaddle made up in the dark ages to keep women compliant and under the thumb. Be as stroppy and unreasonable as you like love, it's not good to bottle it all up.

Thanks so much guys - i am starting hypnobirthing in a couple of weeks time and I hope that some of the relaxation techniques i learn there might be useful to help me stay calm in RL as well as during the birth!

Feeling much better today - much calmer and in control. I think if you're a firey type of person anyway, all these pregnancy hormones, plus being all hot and bothered/heartburny all the time makes it hard to stay mellow :-/

Hi danger, glad to hear your are feeling better. Just a bit of anecdotal evidence - I was really hormonal with terrible mood swings in pregnancy and, like you, really worried that I would emotionally damage the baby. Well DD is now 4 months old and a very chirpy, calm and content baby (though she does seem to have inherited my temper ). I've also been so much more relaxed and calm since the baby has been born and my hormones are stabilising.
I found relaxation music at bedtime helped me to unwind,warn baths, long walks and I did a hypnobirthing cd course and that helped before birth too. Another book I found useful to help me deal with the birth was Juju Sundin's Birth Skills.

Long term stress is not good for you or the baby. So don't get stressed about the baby being stressed, just try and be happy yourself. Eat well, sleep well and rest. Nature will take care of the rest. Good luck.

How can you emotionally damage an unborn child? Seriously?