There is no doubt that life comes with some very big stressors. Relationships gone awry, family deaths, job losses and natural disasters can all create life-altering stress. So what happens when these things occur during pregnancy? Can this kind of stress affect the pregnancy or the health of the fetus?

Aniqua Raines, mother of two from Keiser, Ore., sure thinks it does. Running from an abusive boyfriend for most of her pregnancy, she wasn't surprised at all when there were complications. "I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and I really believe the stress I was under had a bearing on my blood sugar," Raines says. "My baby was also premature and I was in no state of mind to deal with 18 hours of labor. I had a hard time relaxing, which made it more difficult."

Dr. Wanjiku Musindi, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist for the Ohio State University Medical Center, believes that stress can have a serious impact on pregnancy. "Stress during pregnancy, both acute and chronic, has been associated with increased risk for preterm birth and low birth weight," Dr. Musindi says. "Chronic stress is thought to contribute to the racial disparities in infant birth weight, infant mortality and preterm delivery. Furthermore, the presence of other medical conditions, such as hypertension during pregnancy, may increase the magnitude of the stress effect on the pregnancy."

Personal stress and bigger events, such as national or natural disasters, both impact pregnancy. For example, women who were in their first trimester at the time of the World Trade Center (WTC) event on September 11, 2001, have been shown to have shorter gestations. In addition, women who were at term and lived within a two-mile radius of the WTC during the month after the event showed decrements in term birth weight.

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