I find myself very happy and then very depressed, depending on what happened that day. Frisch's wife, Jennifer, is nine months pregnant and counting down to her Sept. 26 due date. Pregnancy has made Frisch realize the finality of both parenthood and marriage, he said. To compound this sense of overwhelming responsibility, the past nine months have been marked with the loneliness of not being able to turn to other men for support, Frisch said, even while pregnant women routinely draw strength from others going through the same experiences. Men who live with pregnant women experience a dip in their testosterone levels before the baby is born, and a rise in the amount of prolactin in their bodies, a 1999 study indicates.
Prolactin is the hormone that triggers milk production in pregnant women.
Anne Storey, a psychology professor at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland, suggests that these changes make men more prone to care for their pregnant partners and the newborn child. Another study, conducted by the University of Pisa, Italy, reported cases of Couvade syndrome in 11 to 65 percent of men. Men experiencing sympathy pregnancies may have indigestion, increased or decreased appetite, diarrhea or constipation, nausea, weight gain, food cravings, backaches, mood swings, headaches, toothaches, itching and cysts. These symptoms typically arise during the third month of pregnancy, then disappear, before reappearing a month or two before the baby is born. Their symptoms are treated in the same manner as the pregnant woman's.