How Mood Disorders and Physical Discomfort Can Affect Bond with Unborn Baby
Monica Drake
| 3 min read
There’s a famous saying that goes, “Women become mothers the moment they know they’re pregnant. Men become fathers the moment the child is born.”
But, in our family, our experience has been the opposite. My husband felt he became a father the moment he found out I was pregnant. I’m not there yet.
I feel this can be taboo for women to admit, but it shouldn’t be. While many women do fall in love with their unborn babies as soon as they see the two pink lines appear on their pregnancy tests, for others, it doesn’t happen quite that way. That’s OK; it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you!
For me – someone who’s struggled with anxiety even when I wasn’t pregnant – I’m constantly nervous that something bad will happen. That’s made it difficult to get too attached. Before every OB appointment, I prep myself for bad news, which makes it hard to let myself actually get excited about the baby.
For me, another reason for not feeling that immediate connection is because pregnancy is hard! It can be difficult to feel this outpouring of love for an unborn baby who, obviously at no fault of his own, is causing hormonal changes, nausea, aching joints, “lightning crotch”, exhaustion and more. Sometimes I get so consumed by the here-and-now that I lose sight of what the end result is going to be.
It can also be hard to feel connected with someone you’ve never met before. Even though my baby is inside of me, I don’t actually know him. I don’t know what he looks like or what it feels like to hold him in my arms or when his birthday will be or even what his name will be. He still feels like an abstract idea. I keep having to remind myself, “there’s an actual human growing in my belly!” because seven months into the pregnancy, it doesn’t feel real.
While it’s easy to feel alone in these feelings, I’m not. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reports that it’s common not to feel connected right away and that bonding often takes place gradually. Some common reasons for a lower maternal-fetal attachment include physical discomfort; a mood disorder such as depression or anxiety; unplanned pregnancy; previous loss; and/or a fear of the unknown.
In a personal essay for Elle Magazine, former tennis player Serena Williams shared that she, too, struggled to bond with her daughter before she was born.
She wrote, “throughout my pregnancy, I’d never felt a connection with her. While I loved being pregnant, I didn’t have that amazing ‘Oh my God, this is my baby moment,’ ever. It’s something people don’t usually talk about, because we’re supposed to be in love from the first second.”
“I kept waiting to feel like I knew her during pregnancy, but the feeling never came. Some of my mom friends told me they didn’t feel the connection in the womb either, which made me feel better, but still, I longed for it.”
Not having this connection may make you nervous about how you’ll feel after the baby is born. It’s common for parents not to connect with their baby until after birth for days or even weeks, according to the National Library of Medicine.
I think my takeaway in my journey with pregnancy so far is that every pregnancy is different. Just because you have these feelings before your baby, that has no precedent over the kind of mother you’ll be after the baby is born!
Opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan or its subsidiaries and affiliates.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Monica Drake.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Monica Drake.
