How Chronic Stress Can Affect Your Pregnancy
Stress is one of the major contributors of illnesses and its negative effects during pregnancy is without question. Corina Bye, a coach, doula, and Certified Somatic Educator for women, has been supporting women since 2009 through personalized doula services rooted in somatic birth guidance and trauma-informed care. Her work, particularly impactful in Indigenous communities, centers on nervous system literacy as a form of maternal protection.
Stress regulation is one of the most critical variables in a healthy pregnancy, which makes somatic healing not optional, but essential. As a trauma-informed doula, Corina Bye integrates traditional somatic practices that help mothers regulate their nervous systems through intentional breathwork, grounding movement, and embodied support. This work strengthens the mind-body connection, allowing women to process deep-rooted emotional stress and stored trauma rather than carrying it unconsciously into pregnancy and birth. By restoring physiological safety, somatic guidance becomes a preventative intervention that supports both maternal well-being and fetal development.
Somatic Healing and Pregnancy
Aside from emotional wellbeing, somatic principles aid in pain relief & mobility for mothers struggling with muscle discomforts. Doulas with a background in somatic principles also guide you through physical exercise to strengthen your core and pelvic muscles that are crucial for labor.
“It does have an effect on the pregnancy (stress), our emotional state… There’s a lot of traditional teachings and modern-day teachings around the community protecting life givers… almost filtering any sort of traumatic event from their world in protection of the baby…The placenta… it does filter cortisol and hormones and acts as a shield to the developing embryo. But it has its limits. And that’s not to make anybody more anxious.”- Corina Bye.
Decades of research confirm that prolonged stress during pregnancy activates the maternal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, increasing circulating cortisol. While the placenta contains an enzyme (11β-HSD2) that helps buffer fetal exposure, sustained stress can overwhelm that protective mechanism. Corina reaffirmed the findings in her presentations. Although the female anatomy is equipped to protect and filter out threats to its fetus, chronic and prolonged levels of stress can filter in.
Aside from lower birth weights, it can affect the ability for a mother to carry the baby to term. A study done by the National Library of Medicine observed a direct and strong correlation between psychological stress and increased rates of miscarriage.
Connect with Doulas Educated on Somatic Principles
Corina’s somatic work addresses this upstream. Regulation of breath, nervous system awareness, trauma-informed touch, and embodied safety are not alternative practices — they are interventions that directly impact autonomic balance. In a system where women carry occupational stress, racial stress, economic stress, and generational trauma before they ever enter prenatal care, addressing stress biology becomes preventative healthcare.
Trauma-informed doulas are trained to recognize how past stress, medical trauma, systemic inequities, and generational experiences live in the body. They understand that a woman’s stress response can be activated by clinical environments, language, touch, or loss of autonomy. By centering regulation, consent, and embodied awareness, doulas like Corina help reduce unnecessary physiological escalation during pregnancy and birth.
Access to emotional and educational resources in the likes of doulas providers has continuously demonstrated effectiveness in the reduction of maternal mortality rates during childbirth.Through empathetic and knowledgeable care, doulas help to minimize complications by equipping mothers with the confidence to understand their emotional and physical attributions when handling their pregnancy. As an advocate, mothers can make more informed decisions which lowers the levels of interventions and emotional distress during labor.