Fathers’ “Morning Sickness”

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30899, 4 November 1965, Page 2

Fathers’ “Morning Sickness”

Occasionally a husband suffers nausea and loss of appetite during his wife’s pregnancy. Symptoms of this kind are commoner than most people think, according to a recently published paper by Doctors M. F. Conlon and W. H. Trethowan, quoted in the Parents Centres Bulletin.

As many as one in nine fathers suffers from minor ailments without any good physical cause during his wife’s pregnancy. Odder still, while some husbands appreciate this, they still cannot control their discomfort; others in a similar plight are quite unaware of the origin of their symptoms—even their own doctors may be deceived.

This curious phenomenon, which is called the couvade syndrome, has been reported

over several centuries, and has its place in folklore. For instance, in the British Isles, in places as far apart as Fife and East Anglia, there are records of the belief that “where a young husband complains of toothache he is assailed by pleasantries as to his wife’s condition.” AT ANY TIME The commonest symptoms of the disorder involve the digestive system; abdominal pain, loss of appetite, indigestion, colic, nausea—even vomiting can occur. The symptoms may appear at any time after pregnancy is established but most commonly they start at the beginning of the third month.

Their incidence diminishes afterwards, but tends to rise again during the ninth month or about the time labour begins. After childbirth they usually disappear witMn a few days, although they may recur during subsequent pregnancies.

Of course, minor stomach disorders occur commonly under other circumstances and therefore it may be difficult to relate with any degree of certainty the symptoms of any individual husband to the fact that his wife is pregnant.

However, when a large enough group of fathers-to-be is compared with a group of men whose wives are not pregnant, both groups being of comparable age and drawn from the same social environment and occupation class, the fathers-to-be are shown to suffer more frequently from the symptoms than can be

explained by chance. Also, the pattern of onset and loss of s.'-mptoms differs in the two groups. . . . COMMON AILMENTS

While all types of symptoms involving the digestive system are collectively commoner in the fathers-to-be, those which occur most frequently are toothache, loss of appetite and nausea or sickness.

Vomiting is not so common. Where it occurs in husband as well as wife, independently of physical disease, it seems to provide a striking example of identification.

The frequency of toothache in fathers-to-be is much more difficult to explain. It is tempting to dismiss it as an old wives’ tale, but a statistical analysis reveals that this is not the case. . . . Its occurrence in the husbands of pregnant women seems to be an outcome of a persisting belief that pregnancy damages women’s teeth. Hence the old saw: “For every child a tooth.” However, this belief is a fallacy, for although some parts of the skeleton may be decalcified during pregnancy, the teeth are not affected. If there is any special liability to dental decay at this time, the only likely reason is a change of diet with an increased intake of refined carbohydrates, possibly as a result of a craving for sweet things. . . . ’ Doctors Conlon and Trethowan offer several suggestions to account for the

prevalence of sympathy pains. Possibly the father-to-be may take on to himself some of his wife’s symptoms as a punishment for the unconscious resentment he may feel at the fact that following childbirth his wife’s affection is likely to be in part withdrawn from him and redirected to the child; or because he feels that in making her pregnant he has placed her in jeopardy. Or his sympathy sickness may be a form of identification so intense that both man and wife experience a common emotional state, and for some as yet inexplicable reason share the same physical sensations.

At present the exact nature of identification is not fully understood, but different individuals vary in their capacity to identify with others, and where the tendency is strong it may lead to a special capacity for empathy.