Feeling Her Pain

The Male Pregnancy Experience By Michael Polinski

"My personal morning sickness started soon into the first trimester," says Joe Robinson, husband of Jess and father of a 5-month-old baby girl. And that's not all Robinson experienced during his wife's pregnancy: He shared just about every pregnancy symptom with her but labor. He gained almost 25 pounds, developed cravings, suffered nausea and tossed and turned at night. What Robinson experienced is called a sympathetic pregnancy or Couvade Syndrome.

Couvade in its narrowest sense refers to the practice in which a father simulates labor and childbirth shortly after the birth of his child to demonstrate his role in reproduction or to ease the mother's pain by sharing in it. It has come to mean, however, the father's sharing of sundry pregnancy symptoms with his wife anytime during the pregnancy or shortly thereafter.

The frequency of Couvade is unknown, but some researchers estimate that it affects from 11 to 65 percent of expectant fathers. The onset of male "pregnancy" symptoms usually starts near the end of the first trimester and generally stops with the birth of the child. Couvade also seems to be a universal phenomenon, with cases reported across cultures, continents and centuries.

But what causes Couvade? For years, researchers have sought the answer to that question using cultural or psychological reasoning. For example, in a 1994 article, a group of Italian researchers wrote that Couvade appears "to be the psychosomatic equivalent of primitive rituals of initiation into paternity." And in a 1991 article, Dr. H. Klein of the University of Texas Medical Branch reviewed some of the possible causes of Couvade such as "somatized anxiety, psuedo-sibling rivalry, identification with the fetus, ambivalence about fatherhood or parturition envy."

Perhaps it's something simpler, something closer to home and closer to the heart. That's what Robinson thinks. "I firmly believe that these 'symptoms' were the result of something a little more spiritual," he says. "A kind of symbiotic connection that she and I felt not only toward each other, but to our little girl growing inside of her."

Or, maybe it's not in their heads or in their hearts – but in their hormones.

In the first two studies of their kind, Canadian researchers Dr. Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards, a professor of biology at Queen's University, and Dr. Anne Storey, a professor of psychology at Memorial University, examined the saliva and blood samples of expectant fathers for hormonal changes at different times during their partners' pregnancies, typically beginning testing at 10 weeks and ending a month after birth.

What Drs. Wynne-Edwards and Storey found were significant changes in the men's levels of the following hormones: prolactin, a female hormone involved in milk production and possibly maternal and paternal behavior; estradiol, a principal form of the female hormone estrogen; cortisol, a hormone related to stress responsiveness; and testosterone, a male hormone associated with aggression.

Specifically, the doctors found in their first study that prolactin concentrations were higher in the men sampled in the last few weeks before the birth. Cortisol concentrations were also higher before the birth whereas testosterone was reduced in the weeks immediately after the birth.

In the second study, when compared to a control of non-fathers, the expectant fathers had lower levels of cortisol and testosterone and reliably detectible levels of estradiol, which is usually found in very low levels in men. Suppressed levels of testosterone after the birth were found again in a majority of the men.

Taken together, the two studies suggest that "men are experiencing hormonal changes associated with parenthood and that those changes are similar to maternal changes." Dr. Wynne-Edwards says the change in hormones may make them "brain parents already" and possibly more willing and better prepared to care for their children.

"If hormones are changing in men, then we might expect to see behavior changes," says Dr. Wynne-Edwards. But she quickly adds, "Hormones don't make humans do anything. They alter the threshold for things happening, making it easier or harder for certain things to happen." In other words, environmental and personal factors interact with hormonal changes in a complicated behavior-determining dance.

Despite the ground-breaking nature of her research, Dr. Wynne-Edwards cautions against generalizing before researchers have looked at other cultures and other groups of men who are less involved parents than these Canadian volunteers.

Still, what might this mean for men experiencing a sympathetic pregnancy? Unfortunately, nothing yet. At this point, the causes of Couvade remain speculative, and the new research merely hints at a biological possibility to go along with the existing explanations of cultural and psychological factors.

In the end, the cause of Couvade probably doesn't matter to the average man going through it. "Despite all the nausea, the sleep deprivation and the coping with weight gain, I know that we wouldn't have had it any other way," Robinson says. "I was proud to experience what I could with what she was going through. It made me feel a lot more involved and a lot less passive. This also comforted her, as she was not the only one."

Want to see more?

• Prenatal Panic: When Father Fears He May Not Know Best
• What Not to Do in the Delivery Room
• Keep Mom-to-be Smiling: Ten Creative Ways to Pamper Your Pregnant Wife
• Talk about it!

About the Author: Michael Polinski is an Illinois-based freelance writer and the father of two.