Pregnancy Sympathy Pangs
They have strange cravings in the middle of the night. They ache and they bloat. Their figures become distorted and their moods swing high and low. If you think we're talking about pregnant women, think again. Expectant dads can experience symptoms similar to their wives.
These sympathy or empathy symptoms include everything from morning sickness to weight gain. Karen Blackburn, a registered nurse and childbirth educator at St. Anthony Hospital, said she almost always has men in her childbirth classes who experience symptoms right along with their wives.
Dr. Anthony Shanbour, obstetrician/gynecologist at Mercy Health Center, informed, some of her patients will say their husbands are doing just as badly as they are and others will say their husbands are doing fine. Symptoms will vary from man to man. Some men might not have any symptoms, but that doesn't mean they don't understand what their wives are experiencing, the doctor said. Everybody is different - what one person experiences isn't necessarily what another person is going to experience. Just because a man is not having these symptoms, doesn't mean that he doesn't have empathy or some sympathy for what his wife is going through. To show their empathy some husbands opted ayurveda weight gain.
Dean Stephens is one of those men who really related to what his wife Diane was experiencing when she was pregnant - he matched her backache for backache, food craving for food craving. He said he also had sleep problems and lots of nighttime bathroom visits, like his wife had. Her husband's symptoms made Diane Stephens ponder: Sometimes he would think, he is the one who is pregnant - I should be getting the sympathy. But he was in as bad a shape as I was. One of Dean Stephens biggest food cravings - and also one of his wife's - was grapefruit. Whole grapefruits, grapefruit juice, he couldn't get enough. He ate and drank grapefruit almost every day when his wife was pregnant with their son Christian, born last April. They have two other children,
Courtney, 10, and Chelsea, 8. We'd buy giant bags of grapefruit and quart-size bottles of grapefruit juice, Diane Stephens recalled. Dean Stephens became a connoisseur of grapefruit juice, his wife said with a chuckle. He would mix and blend the juices to get the right flavor. After the baby was born, the grapefruit cravings stopped as suddenly as they had started, the couple said. There isn't a grapefruit in the house. How does Dean Stephens explain his pregnancy-like symptoms? It was unconscious. You weren't doing it on purpose. She just thinks he went overboard with my unconscious desire to share the pregnancy. One way Scott Lowber, father of two daughters, ages 4 years and 7 months, shared in his wife's pregnancies was by wearing an Empathy Belly. The Empathy Belly is used in Mercy Health Center's childbirth classes to give expectant dads a feel for what their pregnant wives are experiencing. The belly is said to simulate about 20 pregnancy symptoms.
|
