There's no doubt we live in a stressful time. Computers, faxes, cell phones, PDAs and pagers have expanded our working hours from 9 to 5 to 24/7. Kids are involved in an increasing number of activities from the time they're toddlers, and fitting everything into the schedule can be mind-boggling. It would be nice if, during pregnancy, no one was allowed to stress about anything. But, that's not going to happen. What you can do is find ways to manage the stress before it gets the best of you or begins to cause physical symptoms.

Even women who feel they always have everything under control when they're not pregnant can find life is not as manageable when they become pregnant. Dr. Rebecca Shiffman, director of obstetrics at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., says manageable stress can become less manageable during pregnancy.

One thing Dr. Shiffman has noticed is there seems to be more pregnancy-related stresses that are unique to our modern, media-saturated culture. It's almost as if we're moving toward the idea that a woman's lifestyle, activities and looks shouldn't really change when she's pregnant. The result is more body image problems and a great deal of pressure on pregnant women to maintain their pre-pregnant lifestyles in every way. This leads to a lot of resistance to the idea of reducing a workload or other activities, changing the diet to accommodate the increased need for calories or cutting back on intense exercise routines, not to mention guilt when they can't maintain their previous routine.

"There are major emotional, hormonal and physical changes going on in the body," says Dr. Shiffman. "There may be nausea and vomiting and sex may be an issue if there are problems with the pregnancy. It's important to understand that pregnancy is a time when it's not the status quo. You're not the same person you were before you got pregnant."

Dr. Shiffman blames the media for some of this, noting many of the models in pregnancy magazines aren't even pregnant; they're merely wearing a belly pillow for the photographs. Women see this and when they begin to fill out in places other than just their bellies, they become very distressed and think they're going to be big forever.

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