This baffling syndrome makes fathers feel pregnant

Couvade syndrome is experienced by almost half of all partners. It is changing how scientists think about how non-pregnant parents-to-be are affected by their partner's pregnancies.

Four years ago, when his wife was six months pregnant with their first child, Alex Jones started feeling sick almost every night.

"I first noticed a nausea," says the 34-year-old content creator from the East Midlands, UK. "I have a very high threshold for vomiting and sickness. It takes a lot for me to experience nausea. So when it started… I immediately noticed it."

Heavy fatigue, tender skin across his arms and chest, along with a general sense of "just not feeling myself", soon followed. "The weirdest thing was that I woke up frequently with numb arms," says Jones. "When I told my wife, she said that it had been happening to her too."

After some late-night Googling, Jones realised his symptoms matched a little-known condition called Couvade syndrome.

"The best way to describe it is sympathetic pregnancy," says Catherine Caponero, an obstetrician-gynaecologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, US, who has seen a few cases. "Essentially, it's when a non-pregnant partner experiences pregnancy symptoms despite the fact that they're not biologically pregnant."

A growing body of research suggests that the syndrome is more widespread than previously thought – and some scientists wonder whether its bizarre symptoms warrant rethinking how bearing a child affects both parents.

Pervasive but unclassified    

Couvade can affect dads-to-be, same-sex partners and even grandmothers-to-be who live with the pregnant person and are closely involved in their care, says Caponero. Symptoms run the gamut from nausea to fatigue, backaches to dental pains, mood swings to food cravings as well as weight gain. Their onset mimics that of a physical pregnancy and typically peaks during the first and third trimesters before disappearing post-partum.

As Couvade can manifest in many ways and has a nebulous definition, estimates of its prevalence vary drastically. One study, for instance, found that up to 52% of US fathers said they experienced some signs of the syndrome during their wife's pregnancy, with similar figures reported in Jordan at 59% and Thailand at 61%. Other studies have found higher numbers in Poland and China, where seven in 10 expectant dads said they experienced Couvade symptoms. Other research indicates prevalence may be lower in Sweden (20%) and Russia (35%).

Despite this research suggesting it's fairly common, Couvade syndrome isn't officially classified as a medical disorder, says Ronald Levant, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron in Ohio, US. Neither the International Classification of Diseases nor the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – two authoritative tools referred to by clinicians globally – recognise Couvade. Few medical textbooks mention it.       

"I think I learned a sentence about it [in medical school]," says Caponero. "Even in our resources as clinicians, there's not a lot of information there."

Today, much about this poorly-studied syndrome remains a mystery. "Its mechanism is not well-understood," says Daniel Singley, psychologist and director of the Center for Men's Excellence in San Diego, in the US. "Maybe it's a way to try to sublimate and deal with emotional issues, maybe there's a neurobiological underpinning. I don't think it's known."

Most researchers, though, agree that Couvade syndrome is "multifactorial", involving both biological and psychological components, says Levant.

'Brooding' men        

The word Couvade derives from the French verb couver, which means to brood or hatch. An English anthropologist, Edward Burnett Tylor, first popularised the term in 1865, when he used it to describe what he felt was a peculiar sight he witnessed while travelling through the Basque countryside: peasant........

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