Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards is a professor of biology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, who studies hormonal changes in expectant fathers and hormone-behavior interactions in other animal models. She offers the following explanation:
When pregnancy symptoms such as nausea, weight gain, mood swings and bloating occur in men, the condition is called couvade, or sympathetic pregnancy. Depending on the human culture, couvade can also encompass ritualized behavior by the father during the labor and delivery of his child. Couvade has a long anecdotal history and is named from the French verb couver, which translates as ¿to hatch¿ or "to brood." The phenomenon has received attention from biologists only quite recently, however.
Estimates of the frequency of couvade are hard to obtain because of the low rate of reporting symptoms. For example, a research team led by Anne Storey of Memorial University in Newfoundland found that when wives were asked about their husband's experiences a higher incidence of couvade was reported than when the husbands answered the same questions at the same time. Across a wide range of studies--and an equally wide range of definitions of what constitutes couvade--estimates of the frequency in modern Western populations range from under 20 percent to more than 80 percent of expectant fathers.
Society and health professionals all show a lot of interest in a pregnant woman. She is encouraged to talk about any symptoms of her pregnancy, even common ones she is not experiencing. At home, the conversation can range from frustrated incapacitation as a result of her symptoms to boundless joy in anticipation of a child. Thus, it is not surprising that a large number of mental health professionals have considered a range of hypotheses--from jealousy about a man's inability to carry a child to guilt over having caused this transformation in his partner to selfish attention seeking--as the root causes of couvade.
Of course, there are other obvious origins for at least some of the symptoms. For example, if the pregnant wife does much of the shopping and cooking, her cravings, as well as the increasing food intake she needs during pregnancy, are quite likely to result in weight gain for her husband as well as associated symptoms of heartburn and indigestion. There are also studies suggesting that men who have deep empathy toward their pregnant partner and are prone to couvade symptoms end up with strong attachments to their child. If this is the case, then the symptoms might either stimulate, or result from, underlying biological processes that are involved in social attachment.
In recent years animal models of social monogamy (defined as a strong social preference for a single partner), such as prairie voles, have contributed a great deal to our understanding of the neurobiology of love and attachment. Neuropeptides, including oxytocin and vasopressin, are now known to play important roles in the formation and maintenance of strong pair bonds. Mammalian parental behavior involves the formation of a strong social bond to the infant and also engages hormonally stimulated neural circuits. Parental behavior, however, currently appears to depend on sex steroid hormones and prolactin more than on oxytocin and vasopressin. In addition, there is hormonal data from nonhuman primates and naturally paternal rodents--including California mice and dwarf hamsters--that indicates a positive association between the expression of paternal behavior and increases or decreases in prolactin, estradiol, testosterone, progesterone and cortisol concentrations. For example, male mice that lack a gene for the progesterone receptor are not infanticidal toward unrelated pups and, instead, retrieve and huddle over them. Unfortunately, few experiments have established causal relationships between hormonal changes and the behavior.
The situation is similar with respect to our understanding of the hormonal experiences associated with fatherhood in men. Since 2000, several studies have reported hormonal differences between expectant fathers, men in committed relationships and men who are single. There is no doubt that testosterone concentration is lower in the men in relationships, but it is unclear whether men have a decrease in testosterone after the relationship begins or whether men with lower testosterone are more likely to enter into stable relationships. Similarly, there are hormone changes associated with fatherhood. Prolactin is highest in men in the weeks just before the birth, testosterone is lowest in the days immediately after the birth, estradiol levels increase from before to after the birth, and cortisol peaks during the labor and delivery (although it remains an order of magnitude below the hormonal experience of the laboring mother). Alison Fleming of the University of Toronto and her colleagues have shown that maternal cortisol is linked to social bonding with the infant and to postpartum depression, whereas Storey has shown that paternal prolactin is positively associated with the self-reporting of couvade symptoms and powerful emotional responses to infant stimuli. Hormone changes in expectant fathers therefore involve the same hormones that are changing in an expectant mother. They are also the same hormones that are implicated in animal models of parental behavior. In addition, it is known that men are not reflecting a "muted" version of the hormonal experiences of their partner: Within couples, day-to-day hormone status is not correlated during pregnancy or after the birth.
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15 Comments
Add Commentdo men get something like the flu when his wife caring a baby
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was researching couvade because i've been effected by it many times as I have 8 children. The reason for my comment is because the article suggest that it is mostly a mental thing much as how placebos work, but on the contrary. I have alway knew that the child was approaching well before my wife, and have argued her being pregnant when she was sure she wasn't. (symptoms) I can't stay awake and I have nosea, all this before actually having the pregnancy comfirmed. I personally think more research should be done on this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismmm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisallknowingwoman with all due respect. I think you should leave the work to the scientists as you feminist comments do not help anyones and yes we are envious of women for being able to give birth but we are also proud of them for being able to do that. Also since when is a competition? and Since when women "made people" ? last time I checked it takes two to tango. machism? uhmm well i think we are in a new century where there are a huge amount of diversity amoung man and women. Please if you gonna reply to my comment spare your feminist views about the topic and say something neutral that help both genders as this is something that happen to many men and i dont think is down to simple ego or envy!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, though thus article may hold truth. Someone needs to explain why I began gaining weight prior to knowing my wife was pregnant. Slauler@hotmail.com I'm willing to have tests done and (for a fee) sort of donate my hyper-sensitive self to science but I really would like to know the answer to that. Not to mention many other questions I have regarding my un-diagnoised condition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJackmackeson
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy boyfriend kept pushing a pregnancy test on me becuase he said he thought I was pregnant. I wasnt having any symptoms until After I took my pregnancy test and it came back positive. However, my boyfriend keeps says he want to do a DNA test on my baby when I have it. How would he have known I was pregnant before I did if he's wasnt the father of my baby???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell my boyfriend is haveing symtoms like a pregnent person ! he is vomiting feeling food sick every mornings they told me that it may mean that iam pregnent !!but i dont know is it possible that i could be pregnent but instead of me feeling the symtoms he is the one haveing them>>>.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell my boyfriend is haveing symtoms like a pregnent person ! he is vomiting feeling food sick every mornings they told me that it may mean that iam pregnent !!but i dont know is it possible that i could be pregnent but instead of me feeling the symtoms he is the one haveing them>>>.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell my boyfriend is haveing symtoms like a pregnent person ! he is vomiting feeling food sick every mornings they told me that it may mean that iam pregnent !!but i dont know is it possible that i could be pregnent but instead of me feeling the symtoms he is the one haveing them>>>.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyea thats how my boyfriend feels he was sick and he kept vomiting and craving food always sleeping but i got my period last month..but i heard that there some pregnant women that bleed when there pregnant
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell the same is happening to my boyfriend he is vomiting having craving food he sleeps alot...i cry for any reason know
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSymptoms usually begin couvade sometimes arise around the third month of pregnancy decrease a bit, then resume during the month or so before the baby is born. Are almost always mysteriously disappears when the baby is born. List No one really knows why men get these symptoms, but there are many theories. The first is that men, were programmed (socially or biologically, take your pick) to try to protect our families and protect them from danger. Since we can not do much to reduce discomfort and pain during pregnancy, the brain reach the only idea of trying to ease his pain by taking some of them in ourselves. This is particularly true for parents who feel pregnant somehow responsible for having got in first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.healthywomenguide.com/
I believe individual were created with connecting properties. There are many variables that connects us to each other, so as to feel and experience what the is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishuman are walking antennas, the woman is not just a docking bay for sperms, it takes two to make a child. Making a child does not end at squirting for men. The chemistry of the childs development will affect both partners. I aint no scientist, I just look into lives development. It is the same for mothers who felt when something bad has happened to their child before they were told. what causes that?
We are unique walking bluetooth, some of us just dont know it because scientist have not told us.
I believe research should be done on this issue.
Each time I found out I was pregnant was through my fiance. It could only be imitation if its known. He started eating things he wouldn't normally eat and his lower abdomen protruded each time before we found out I was pregnant. Sympathy, I think not. Some things just can't be explained.
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