Stupid I know but...

[wafflesmum]

I woke up last night having a terrible nightmare - shouting and screaming and heart pounding. Took a good while to calm down. At 16 weeks can this have had any impact? Be kind! I'm a worrier...

No! I had horrible nightmares at the beginning of my pregnancy with DD. I think it's quite common.

Nightmares and also erotic dreams are very common in pregnancy.....I had both sorts all throughout my last pregnancy.

Oh god this is normal.
Erotic dreams (about women I know mostly ) and horrible, horrible nightmares.

Do you mean any impact on the developing fetus? Raised cortisol levels can impact on brain development, but I don't think in the case of nightmares it would be too high.

Women deliver perfectly healthy babies in dangerous war zones and under extremely stressful conditions.

Nightmares are absolutely normal in pregnancy. Please DO NOT worry -- your baby is absolutely fine.

Oh yes babyboom, but in those kind of conditions, and I mean seriously stressful, raised cortisol levels can lead to aggression from the child later in life. Leaving a child for extended periods of crying can have the same effect I believe.

But dreams are a natural way for the mind to deal with stress or new experiences etc. Baby will be fine! I don't want to scare OP!

Crankytwanky that is a very interesting theory. However, I felt that mentioning the raised cortisol levels may have been more of a stress for wafflesmum than a comfort one more thing for a worried mother-to-be to worry about. Which is why I mentioned that women in war zones do deliver healthy babies and that nightmares in comparison are completely benign natural occurances that will have no impact on a developing fetus.