Pregnant ladies: men can feel your pain — literally

THERE was a time when pregnancy caused men nothing but the odd scald from all that boiling water, but today’s modern male suffers the gestation jitters among other baby blues.

Belly cramps, back pain, mood swings, food cravings, morning sickness and even swollen abdomens are some of the problems suffered by males whose wives and girlfriends were expecting.

Many women have held the view that if men got pregnant they’d stay in bed during the entire nine months. Well, if that happens there may be a medical motive for it.

In one of the largest medical studies of its kind ever undertaken in Europe, researchers found that during pregnancy men who whinge are not necessarily wimps.

A group of 282 expectant fathers aged from 19 to 55 years were monitored throughout their partners’ pregnancies by medical specialists at St George’s University of London. There findings were quite revealing — men genuinely suffer pregnancy symptoms in sympathy with their partners. Some men sported swollen stomachs that were genuine ‘beer-free’ baby bumps — with-out the baby that is.

The researchers’ findings were compared to a control group of 281 men whose partners were not pregnant. They experienced none of the symptoms.

Stomach cramps were the most common complaint. “I think I was in more pain than she was. It seemed like my pain was worse,” an expectant father said. Another said he had food cravings. “I was constantly hungry and had an unstoppable craving for chicken kormas and poppadams, even in the early hours of the morning.” ! The phen-omenon where men suffer sympathy symptoms is called Couvade Syndrome.

The study’s author, Dr Arthur Brennan of the University of London’s Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, said: “Some people may per-ceive this as men trying to get in on the act but far from being attention-seeking, these symptoms are involuntary. Often the men haven’t got a clue about what’s happening.”