You’ve read the stories or heard them from your friends, and maybe you’ve even experienced it yourself: a dog that senses its owner is pregnant even before she knows herself.
But is it really possible that dogs can sense you’re expecting? Here’s what the research can — and can’t — tell us about your dog’s perception of your pregnancy.
Can dogs sense pregnancy in humans?
Anecdotally, at least, dogs have been known to start following around a newly pregnant owner or suddenly becoming overprotective. Although there is no study (yet) showing that dogs can sense pregnancy in humans, it’s really not that much of a stretch to assume that they might be able to sense when an owner has a baby on board.
If you do notice changes in your dog’s behavior during pregnancy, it may be linked to shifts in your hormones along with changes in your behavior — both of which research shows dogs can sense.
Changes in your pregnancy hormones
Receptors in a dog’s nose can pick up on hormones. And research suggests that the hormones emitted by your body can lead to a change in body odor that’s detectable even by other humans. Therefore, it stands to reason dogs might also pick up on the hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy — in essence, smell that you’re pregnant.
During pregnancy, your body is filled with a new cocktail of hormones. The human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) levels in your blood, for one, skyrocket from somewhere around 50 mIU/L max in week 3 of pregnancy to up to 426 mIU/L by week 4 and 288,000 in the last weeks of the first trimester. Estrogen, progesterone and prolactin levels also all rise during pregnancy.
Meanwhile, dogs’ sense of smell is notoriously sensitive: Scientists say they can smell as much as 100,000 times better than we humans can, allowing them to pick up on a wide range of chemical compounds.
More About Pets and Pregnancy
And, like us, dogs have not one but two senses of smell. One picks up on important survival stuff, such as food odors. The other (known as Jacobson's organ or vomeronasal organ) picks up on what’s known as pheromones. These chemical compounds transmit signals to other dogs, helping them to detect, for example, a dog’s readiness to mate and even potentially another dog’s health.
Using that incredible sense of smell, dogs have been shown to sniff out health conditions in people with incredible accuracy. Research suggests that dogs can sense cancer, including prostate, colorectal, ovarian and lung cancers, as well as infectious diseases including COVID-19 and malaria— sometimes by merely sniffing a person’s breath — with nearly 100 percent accuracy.
Dogs have even been shown to detect low or high blood sugar levels in people with diabetes or body odors that occur before a seizure, and they can be trained to alert owners by whining or licking their hands.
Given these abilities, detecting changes in a person’s pregnancy hormones doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
Changes in your behavior
Dogs are very attentive and socially responsive, especially with their owners. They notice slight changes in an owner’s behavior, which is why some are trained to be registered emotional support companions for people with PTSD, anxiety, depression and other mental health disorders.
During pregnancy, your behavior or routine may change in ways that your dog notices. For example, your dog might notice that you’re more tired than usual, that you have major nausea, that you’re in nesting mode — or even simply that your baby bump is growing.
Will your dog’s behavior change during your pregnancy?
Even if your dog may be able to sense that you’re pregnant, it doesn’t necessarily mean his behavior will change. While some dogs might become more protective and clingy, yours might seem more fearful around you or simply indifferent.
Can dogs sense if you’re going into labor?
Major hormonal changes to levels of oxytocin, endorphins, prolactin and adrenaline all play an important role in triggering and sustaining labor and delivery — from instigating contractions that dilate and efface the cervix to preparing the body to breastfeed. Given that dogs can smell hormones, they may also be able to sense hormonal shifts that occur as you’re going into labor.
There’s no hard science that proves your dog knows you’re pregnant or about to go into labor. But if it seems like your dog is acting unusual during your pregnancy, you could be right in assuming that he is really is sensitive to the changes going on in your body. Either way, it’s always a good idea to start preparing your dog to welcome a new baby even before your little one’s arrival.
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