Today's generation of childbearing women often have fears about giving birth. How much will it hurt? How long will labor be? Will my birth team give me enough or the right kind of support? Will I be able to cope? Will I be okay? Will my baby be okay?
No matter how much advice you get from other people about what you should do, working through and overcoming your fears can seem impossible. In fact, some mothers may allow their fears to dictate their decisions. For example, if you fear the pain, you simply get an epidural. There is no incentive to work through your fears about giving birth or explore the reasons for your fear, but circumventing it may initially feel safer to you.
One of the problems is that the root of your fear is still there. Not to mention, making decisions based solely on avoidance can have consequences that you may not be adequately prepared to manage.
Learning New Strategies to Overcome Childbirth Fears
Working through your fears about birth is not a simple process, but it is an effective one. You could work through and overcome your fears on your own, but an even better strategy is to work through your fears with a mental health professional, birth counselor, doula or a close friend.
Work on Your Fears One at a Time
Since it can often feel overwhelming to try to tackle all of your fears at once, start by examining your fears one at a time. You might even decide it is not worth it if the process seems too difficult, which is why it is crucial to not only take breaks, but to only work on just one fear at a time.
Identifying Your Childbirth Fears
One suggestion would be to journal about your fears. List them one by one as they come to you. For some mothers this can take awhile or for others who are more in touch with their fears, it may be fairly simple. Put the list away and give yourself a break if you feel you need one before you move on from here.
Here is an example of one fear about giving birth to help you get started:
Fear #1 - "I fear having medical things done to me without asking me if its okay or telling me about it first."
Taking a Look at the Root of Fears About Giving Birth
Once you have identified each fear, jot down some reasons for why you think the fear is there. What is the root behind the fear? What is coming to your mind that may be driving that fear? Does it come from a memory or a difficult past experience? Does the fear come from a belief or thought about yourself or your own abilities? Does it come from something you have heard from someone else?
Using our example above, here are some possible roots behind this fear.
"I fear feeling out of control. I fear not knowing what is going on. I fear someone doing something to me without my knowledge. I fear feeling trapped."
If you are having difficulty finding the root of your fears, it can be helpful to get help from
Listing True Empowering Statements
After you have identified what is behind the fear or what is the driving force behind that fear for you, make a list of true statements that can help you overcome these fears. It is worth noting here that for some mothers, identifying the root of their fears may be revealing but also incredibly painful. If at any time during this process you are having trouble coping with your fears, please be sure to seek a mental health professional or counselor.
If we use our example above, here is a list of empowering true statements to help you work toward reducing your fears about giving birth:
"I will use support people who will explain every step of the process to me so that I do not have any questions about what is going on."
"I am in control of making decisions about myself or my labor."
"I will write down what I want and need in a birth plan so that I do not feel trapped into doing anything without a medical reason."
"I am not weak. I am strong and capable and I can give birth even if it is hard."
If need be, write some of these statements on cards and bring them with you during labor. Be sure that your birth team knows about any specific requests you have so that they do not trigger any of your fears.
Looking at the Big Picture about Making Birth Decisions
One of the hard things about giving birth is that not everyone will make the same choices. Though your friends and family will have their own ideas about what you "should" do, making your own decisions is an important part of feeling a sense of control and can even be a stepping stone to reduce some of your fear.
Part of what each mother should recognize is that, while birth is natural and normal, the big picture is that you grow and learn and that your birth experience is a positive one. If you are able to overcome your fears about giving birth, just imagine how empowering that can be in other aspects of your life!
What are some of your fears about giving birth? Write a comment here.
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