how much does stress effect the baby?

[Jayfer]

I'm pretty stressed out at the mo. My husband's sister is causing all sorts of problems and she owes us money, which shes been promising to pay for the past 4 months. If we don't get the money we're going to be really stuck as I'm disabled and bring no money into the house so we're totally reliant on husbands wage.
I even been dreaming about it.
Could the stress of it be causing the baby harm, its my first so I'm pretty clueless?

Not as such, no.

I have a ds 5, and my pregnancy with him was horrendously stressful. It started out as a triplet pregnancy, but we lost a baby at ten weeks, then at 14 weeks one of my remaining babies was diagnosed as seriously ill and we were told it was unlikely he would live for long after he was born. As you may imagine, the rest of that pregnancy was incredibly frought and stressful.

Sadly we did loose one of our sons, but as i said, i have a happy healthy five year old now and you;d never know to look at him now what we went through.

I really hope things settle down for you though - i think the stress takes more of a toll on you then it does on the pregnancy, iyswim?

I don't think it necessarily harms the baby, but if you recognise the enormous stress levels, you can at least do something positive. Can you go to preg yoga, or get a relaxation cd and make a commitment to your new baby to use it regularly?

I had 3 family funerals during the pregnancy of dc3, and the birth was fine, but she was incredibly unsettled for the first year. Cranial osteopathy helped a bit, but she was still very needy for a long time.

Hiya you say your disabled but are you registerd disabled,why are you not claiming disabilty benefit as you are entitled to it,everyone else claims it so why shouldn't you. Before my dad passed away to terminal cancer he was claiming disability living allowance and getting money every month which helped him loads due to not being able to work

you can get info from your doctor and local jobsentre

Stress is a strange one, it can have advantageous effects on the human body and devastating effects. Short periods of stress are said to be really helpful, long periods are best avoided. Dreaming about your problems is actually not a bad sign, shows that your body and mind are trying to sort it out. I would say that worrying about something you have no control over is pointless, stay calm and believe it'll all work out for best.

I don't think stress directly affects your baby, hopefully that's one less thing causing you stress. A friend of mine lost her dad due to an accident in early pg, obv she was very worried about this as ell, but was reassured.
Does affect you though, hope you can get your problems sorted and good luck with rest of pg!