The concept of prenatal development
The concept of prenatal development and birth involves a series of events that occur from conception to delivery and, as a result, affect the mother and the fetus. These events could be psychosocial, cognitive, or physical. For the baby, it involves development from a zygote to a fetus, while for the mother, it entails the worries and fears she faces during the gestation period.
Mothers react to the notion of pregnancy in different ways depending on different factors such as parity, financial situation, and marital status, which, in turn, affects the fetus’s development. Mothers experiencing pregnancy for the first time or those having an unexpected pregnancy find the whole concept quite foreign and are always doubtful of whether they are doing things right. They anticipate labor pain and become fearful of it; hence they experience anxiety and depressive episodes that may lead to a pre-traumatic stress disorder (Buffa et al., 2018). To cope with stress and depression, they may conduct themselves to harm the fetus, such as by drinking alcohol. Mothers who have had prior pregnancies, however, may be overconfident due to their previous experiences. The overconfidence causes them to be complacent during pregnancy, and as a result, they may overlook vital stipulations in pregnancy, which could harm them or the fetus. Those who have a history of miscarriages may develop anxiety disorders that could also be harmful to the fetus. Expectant mothers with low income may have financial concerns that could lead to a lack of adherence to good health practices during pregnancy, such as failure to abide by their antenatal appointments and exhibiting noncompliance to essential supplements such as folic acid. As a result, fetal development is affected, and there is a failure of early diagnosis complications of pregnancy, which could be fatal even to the mother. However, mothers with high incomes mostly try to maintain their career life and therefore neglect the demands of pregnancy, and hence they fail even to establish a maternal-fetal attachment. Paternal support is essential during pregnancy. Expectant mothers with supportive spouses can quickly adapt to the role of parenthood and may not experience prenatal depression or overcome it easily, unlike those with unsupportive spouses. Mothers with abusive spouses are mostly victims of prenatal depression, and the molesting could physically affect the mother and the fetus, resulting in miscarriages. Single mothers are also victims of depression and pre-traumatic stress disorder as they bear all the worries and concerns that come with the pregnancy on their own. Single mothers with low income or young also have financial problems, which may need to be neglected. There has been a surge in teenage pregnancies recently due to the lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most teenagers are assumed to be experiencing pregnancy for the first time; therefore, the concept is quite bizarre. They face many stressing factors that result in them experiencing a whirlwind of emotions that leave them confused and exhausted. At first, they are conflicted about whether to keep the pregnancy or abort it. Those who end up aborting are left feeling empty and at a loss, therefore showing that they had already formed a maternal-fetal attachment to some extent. Most teenagers who try to abort change their minds at the last minute because an attachment to the fetus has been established. The ones who are still conflicted show affection to their fetus subconsciously in various ways, such as rubbing their bellies from time to time. Most teenagers lack basic education on caring for pregnancies and may neglect important points such as antenatal visits, which could be fatal to the babies. Some could also miss out on their antenatal appointments due to fear of being ridiculed by society. They may also expose the fetus to teratogens that could lead to congenital anomalies such as fetal alcohol syndrome due to alcohol consumption during pregnancy and stillbirth due to smoking (Stangor & Walinga, 2019). Addiction is known to be a point of concern, mostly for teenagers. Therefore, those having an addiction to drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine could end up giving birth to babies who are addicted to these drugs, and managing them could be costly. For instance, a baby born as a heroin addict requires weaning under medical supervision as they are at risk of showing withdrawal symptoms such as seizures or sudden death. Due to most teenage mothers’ financial deficits and the preference of using the available money on purchasing the drugs, most babies born as addicts end up dying. In the current society, teenage pregnancies are mostly considered part of the norm and are no longer disapproved. In some places, they are even considered a trend. However, some people still find teenage pregnancies unacceptable and ridicule against expectant teenage mothers, leading to the mothers’ stigmatization, hence resulting in major depressive episodes that could harm the fetus and the mother. Some teenage mothers may opt for antidepressants as a way of dealing with depression. These antidepressants, however, are considered teratogenic and may lead to fetal malformations. Some expectant teenage mothers lack social support from family, friends, and even spouses leading to them enduring the financial burdens on their own. The resulting stress could result in negligence that could be harmful to the mother and the baby. They also experience the anticipation of labor pain and tokophobia on their own, which could lead to pre-traumatic stress disorder. The example above clearly depicts how factors like parity and financial status play a key role in pregnancy outcomes for the mother and the baby.
In conclusion, prenatal development and birth should be handled with vigilance by the mother, her spouse, and family members as it affects the mother and the fetus’s safety. Psychological awareness about this concept should be offered to mothers, especially teenagers, to adapt to the idea of motherhood and tend to their pregnancies properly. As a result, the number of stillbirths, maternal mortality, infant mortality, and babies with congenital anomalies would be significantly reduced.
Reference
Stangor, C., & Walinga, J. (2019, June 28). 14.1 Conception and Prenatal Development. Openpress.Usask.Ca; University of Saskatchewan Open Press. https://openpress.usask.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/conception-and-prenatal-development/
Buffa, G., Dahan, S., Sinclair, I., St-Pierre, M., Roofigari, N., Mutran, D., Rondeau, J.-J., & Dancause, K. N. (2018). Prenatal stress and child development: A scoping review of research in low- and middle-income countries. PLOS ONE, 13(12), e0207235. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207235