Mothers' Instincts About Pregnancy

Being Pregnant

• Women sometimes just have a "feeling" that they're pregnant. That feeling goes beyond the physical symptoms of pregnancy like enlarged and painful breasts, nausea and flu-like symptoms. Instead, these women just know in their hearts that they are pregnant. Pregnant mothers bond with their babies as they grow in the womb. Mothers may become more attached after seeing that first ultrasound or feeling their babies move for the first time. That bond helps a mother develop a relationship with and care for her baby after birth.

Protection

• Part of being a mom with a maternal instinct is feeling protective of and wanting to nurture a baby, whether or not it has been born. Melissa Redmond, a mother in Ireland, had had four miscarriages and two live births, so she was no stranger to pregnancy when she became pregnant in the summer of 2009, according to the Daily Mail. She was told at her eight-week ultrasound that she had miscarried again. Her doctors gave her a drug to induce labor, and scheduled a surgical removal of the baby for two days later. Something told her to seek a second opinion as she still felt like the baby was alive, and the baby̵7;s heartbeat sounded loud and clear at the follow-up appointment. Errors in ultrasound equipment and staff errors have caused similar problems for more than 20 mothers in the five years prior to Redmond̵7;s incident.

Nesting

• Pregnant women often have the urge to clean, stock up and organize. Cleaning out the fridge, washing items that don̵7;t normally get washed, buying every diaper in sight or furiously dusting blinds are signs that a pregnant woman is getting ready for a big change in her life. She is trying to get her environment ready to receive a new addition that will require all of her attention. Once the baby is born, meals and housekeeping may fall by the wayside.

Gender

• Pregnant mothers often feel that they know the gender of baby they are carrying. During a two-year study conducted in the late 1990s by the University of Arizona, 100 pregnant women were asked to predict the gender of their children, and were scientifically proven to be right about 70 percent of the time. Women who did not have a preference for whether their children were boys or girls were more accurate than women who did have a preference.