The Truth About Pregnancy

Pregnancy can be a beautiful and exciting experience, but it can also bring up feelings of anxiety, fear, stress, isolation and uncertainty. Like any major life change it’s completely normal to experience a mix of emotions. Pregnancy is a huge transition in a woman’s life and it can impact you spiritually, physically and emotionally.

Plenty of attention is given to the physical changes in a woman’s body, but the emotional changes she may experience may not always be obvious or discussed. During pregnancy a women may experience moods and emotions ranging from joy and excitement about the arrival of a baby to feeling frightened of the birth, impatient, worried and terrified as the time to meet her baby comes closer.

Changes

Some women may experience physical health problems throughout pregnancy. You may have a plan or an idea of how you would like the labour or birth of your baby to go but perhaps medical intervention is needed or recommended. This can leave some women feeling like they are defective in some way or like they have failed as a women by needing help to birth their baby.

Often women don’t’ feel like they can talk about what they are experiencing for fear of being judged by others. Maybe you have worries about how your body has changed or worries about weight gain. Pregnancy can causes emotions to run high and this can cause conflict in close relationships.

Anxiety

If it’s your first pregnancy perhaps you have lots of concerns around the birth or worries about your baby being safe. You may worry about any new sensations as the baby grows. Perhaps you may have experienced a previous miscarriage or tried for many years to become pregnant and have anxiety around the safety of the pregnancy. If you have had an unplanned pregnancy you may feel stressed, you may not know how to tell people, you may feel overwhelmed and very unsure.

Shock

Even if you have planned for a pregnancy, on discovering you are pregnant it’s completely normal to feel a sense of shock or anxiety as something very significant has changed in your life.

Practical Concerns

Pregnancy can also bring up other issues such as difficult family relationships, insecurities, high expectations of yourself. There can be lots of practical concerns when we are to become parents such as financial issues, your career after you have had your baby, child care, do you return to work.

Vulnerability

It’s so important to remember that we can be at our most vulnerable when we are pregnant. You are not inadequate or a disappointment or defective if pregnancy doesn’t leave you feeling happy and elated. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could be more open about how pregnancy really makes us feel?

How to support yourself during pregnancy

• Be kind and gentle with yourself
• Give yourself permission to have bad days
• Take time each day to tell yourself how amazing you are and how amazing your body is
• Talk to your baby growing inside of you even when you’re sad or unsure
• Rest as often as you can
• Avoid people who want to share negative birth stories
• Try some guided meditations for bonding with your baby
• Treat yourself
• Pregnancy Yoga
• Practice mindfulness
• Write a gratitude diary
• Create a pregnancy diary for you and your unborn child
• Pregnancy massage
• Allow yourself to cry
• Don’t judge yourself you are growing a person inside you, how amazing is that
• Share your worries and fears
• Remember you are not perfect. Nobody is
• Practice self- compassion

How can therapy help?

Some women experience depression during pregnancy this can be caused by hormones changing the chemicals in your brain it would be advised to see a GP but therapy can also help as a valuable aid to support you through your pregnancy.

• Anxiety around becoming a mother
• Bonding with your baby
• Previous traumatic birth experiences
• Space to explore your individual experience with pregnancy
• Support around difficult family relationships

‘’ REMEMBER HOW AMAZING YOU ARE’’