Screaming and loud noises

[PurpleCurtain]

I had a big row with my husband tonight - really just the constant bickering kind over what started as nothing in particular, driven by hormones. I was desperate for it to stop, so, childlishly, I screamed/ squealed as loudly and high pitched as I could, for maybe 10 seconds. It did do the trick and brought us both to our senses, but now we're wondering if it's possible this has caused hearing damage?

We realised we don't know anything at all about the impact of loud noises in pregnancy - particularly not really shrill ones from the mother herself/ immediate vicinity! Can anyone shed any light? It's obviously not something I plan to do again. I'm 22 weeks.

Babies at 22 weeks gestation can only hear low frequency sounds.

It won’t have caused any harm at all

I doubt it but babies pick up on stress etc so maybe don't get yourself so worked up when you're pregnant. The bath will be a nervous wreck if you keep on with the 'constant bickering'.

Baby not bath*

Are you serious. Maybe an elementary biology lesson on gestational development. There is a small substantial wall of amniotic fluid muffling sound with a foetus so it will have no impact. I think a previous PP is referring to cortisol and embryonic development. This needs to be sustained. A spat here and there is nothing. Sustained increased cortisol would be due to a sustained situation of extreme stress, not what you describe.

They need to teach this shit in school. Seriously.

Are you ok Op? Screaming for 10 seconds to shut your partner up doesn't seem a reasonable response to me.

@Motnight

Are you ok Op? Screaming for 10 seconds to shut your partner up doesn't seem a reasonable response to me.

Thanks. Yes - it's definitely not a common occurrence, but last night I struggled to get the message home that I didn't want to debate trivial thing X for the sake of the baby and it escalated. Apparently he previously thought that pregnancy hormones were the equivalent of man flu and had never heard that stress was detrimental (even if very cumulative...) which led to accelerated rather than decelerated bickering. Once we stopped I talked a bit of sense into both of us but we were intrigued that we couldn't find anything about loud/ high pitched shrieking, particularly if from the mother, or to be honest much conclusive evidence at all about loud or shrill noises (most was very general around "arguing") - so it was a general question as much as a specific one.

@HoppingPavlova I'm not ignoring that, but there are a few different studies that do conclude a strong correlation between someone other than the mother shouting loudly around the unborn baby, and hearing loss. They werent able to do more than hypothesise re cause, so not clear if it is volume or cortisol related. Also, my understanding was that sound absorption is different at different frequencies.

None of these studies extend to the mother shrieking. Of course, I can rationalise and conclude that opera singers continue whilst pregnant and to someone opera-ignorant like me it's likely a similar sound (and much prolonged/ repeated!).

I'm fascinated and terrified by the experience of being pregnant in equal measure, so I do have lots of questions wherever I have experiences that don't seem to fall clearly into existing advice/ research.