Bizarre Disorder: Couvade Syndrome

I always love reading about bizarre occurrences and I’m very much interested in the area of medical or mental disorders. As I was exploring the internet, I found this very odd disorder. Its name was Couvade syndrome. This medical phenomenon iss probably one of the most bizarre cultural disorders today that I’ve read. The term “couvade” was derived from the early French word “couver” or to brood. As such, it pertains to a medical or mental disorder involving fathers who experience some of the behavioral and physical manifestations of pregnancy, along with his wife, especially as they near the time of their child’s birth. A few of these pseudo pregnancy symptoms include weight gain, irregularities in digestion and elimination, breast enlargement, cravings, birth pains, and postpartum seclusion. These are quite odd considering that males should not go through them at all. In some worst cases, the fathers can grow a belly similar to a 6-7month pregnant woman and gaining 25 to 30 lbs.

Unlike what’s commonly suspected, couvade syndrome is actually very common. However, it is a poorly unstated phenomenon. There are several hypothesized causes for it. But among all of them, no specific reason(s) has been identified. Some people rally that psychological problems bring about this condition. As such, ambivalence towards fatherhood, parturition envy, and pregnancy-related anxiety are a few of those they pinpoint as probable causative factors. But in relation, some researchers believe that there is a hormonal aspect to this experience. In line with this, it has been suggested that sleep disturbances may cause neurohormonal imbalances that set off the couvade response. Since the pregnancy-involved hormone estrogen is also present in males, it might be that it is triggered upon a “sympathetic pregnancy” mindset. Other suggested explanations of how and why this occurs include an interaction of factors (such as circadian rhythms, pheromones, mitogenetics and simple stress). In addition,