Partners get pregnancy symptoms too

Fairfax

BEFORE BABY: Partners of pregnant women often get their own set of symptoms that mirror pregnancy - food cravings and weight gain, constipation, labour pains, headaches and toothache, a New Zealand researcher says.

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Partners of pregnant women often get their own set of symptoms that mirror pregnancy - food cravings and weight gain, constipation, labour pains, headaches and toothache, a New Zealand researcher says.

"Some put it down to anxiety for their partner, others say it's sympathy," said Waikato University researcher Irene Lichtwark.

"Some theorists blame envy, while others say it's a man's way of preparing for fatherhood," she said. "I think it's wrong to put it down simply to attention seeking."

Known as "Couvade Syndrome" the phenomenon has been reported overseas in men far away from their partners, same sex partners, mothers and mothers-in-law .

The symptoms disappear quite quickly after the partner has given birth, said Ms Lichtwark.

She said there were no specific figures for the condition's incidence in New Zealand, but in the United States estimates were as high as 90 percent of male partners having pregnancy symptoms, and between 30 and 60 percent in Europe.

Her 10-week study of pregnancies in the Waikato-King Country-Thames Valley area was part of a bigger study into stress in pregnancy being led by Dr Carrie Barbour at Waikato University.

Ms Lichtwark, a mother of three children, has been an ante-natal educator for nine years and now intends to talk to men who have suffered from pregnancy symptoms.

"It's important we gain a better understanding of this aspect of pregnancy," she said.

"It would probably help everyone involved in the pregnancy if there's a better understanding about how and why Couvades occurs."

- NZPA