Anxiety during Pregnancy
Stressful events predispose us to feelings of anxiety, and 20% to 30% of women will experience some form of anxiety during pregnancy. Pregnancy itself can lead to anxiety due to its inherent physical and emotional transformations, as well as the new life challenges it brings you, your partner and your family.
Excessive stress, constant pressure at work, at home, ceaseles worry, fear of childbirth and parenting, feelings of panic, each of these generate anxiety and might render pregnancy highly overwhelming.
If this has started with your pregnancy or has being going on since long before you got pregnant, it is important for you to know that many women experience symptoms of anxiety during pregnancy, and if you were already suffering from anxiety prior to becoming pregnant, these symptoms can worsen with all the transformations that you are going through.
But when should anxiety be cause for concern? And how can it be treated during pregnancy? Every expecting woman should be informed about it.
Depending on its severity and relative levels, anxiety during pregnancy can easily be treated with light psychotherapies or meditation and relaxation training that helps you to become aware of yourself, your body, your thoughts and feelings, keeping you in the present moment – and not lost in the future or in long gone memories that trigger anxiety. Severe stress and anxiety are best dealt with when you choose to truly take care of yourself and your baby, and start managing your pregnancy.
Preventing and controlling anxiety
Mental health should be given just as much attention and care as physical health, especially during pregnancy and in the postpartum period. Women find themselves very lonely when dealing with mental issues during pregnancy because their partner and family do not understand how it is possible to feel bad in a moment that should be the best moment of their lives, often after years of waiting to get pregnant.
Not much is known about the complexity of factors involved in the development of anxiety during pregnancy and many health providers do not screen their patients for anxiety disorders. And anxiety disorder can be difficult to accurately diagnose, because some symptoms overlap with pregnancy’s biological symptoms like changes in appetite fatigue, lack of concentration, nausea, etc.)
A history of anxiety in the family may predict a woman’s propensity to anxiety, but it is not always the case. Factors such as perfectionism, being too demanding on oneself, not reaching out for help, may contribute to high anxiety levels during pregnancy. Multiple miscarriages, fertility problems, a breakeup, loneliness and other impactful situations may also lead you to anxiety and even depression.
Women should understand that in order to prevent or take care of an anxiety disorder, they can strive to communicate, share, express their thoughts and feelings even when they feel vulnerable, when the other party does not understand what they are going through. It is the only way to successfully take care of themselves and their baby, who can give them some strength to overcome these challenges.
I always remind women that they are forming and inspiring their baby inside, that babies sense what their mother feels as if it were their own experience. So, a mother who decides to act and move through her challenges is also imprinting her baby that challenges can be overcome.
Learning and practicing inner peace, simple and effective breathing, relaxation techniques, and performing them regularly will not only help the mother move through possible feelings of guilt, fear or even embarrassment, but will also help her to go into her body, her breath, focusing on her emotional wellbeing and deeply bonding with her baby inside.
But what exactly is normal anxiety and what is not?
There is definitely a difference between being worried about something and being consumed about being worried. Everyone worries, it is normal, natural, simply human, as it keeps you out of possibly dangerous situations. Think of thousands of years ago, when we we lived in the wild, yes, we worried about our own safety and were on alert for our safety but not on HIGH ALERT mode all the time! Anxiety is like setting a false alarm in your system that goes on day in and day out with no need because you are not on in a dangerous situation most of the time.
Many women, during pregnancy, feel they are amplifying their worries. Most worry about whether they are going to be good moms and if their babies are healthy. Others might worry about how their couple will change, how siblings will react to a new baby, or even how their financial life will change, this is normal. You may feel insomnia and become more emotional, sensitive to things that you were not before, this is also natural.
But if you persistently experience one or more of the following:
• trouble in concentrating on your day-to-day life
• trouble in functioning at work or at home
• feelings of hopelessness
• frequent sense of fear or restlessness
• thoughts of worry and constant anticipation
• obsessive thoughts that just won’t go away
• a frequent sense of panic
• difficulty in enjoying the simple things that used to make you feel good
• severe fatigue
• irritability
• restlessness and a disrupted sleeping pattern
• heart palpitations, hot flashes, dizziness and nausea, muscle tension
this is not normal or healthy and definitely affects your ability to function as ussual. This is when you should talk with a specialist because, for some women, their normal anxiety level can escalate and turm into an anxiety disorder.
High levels of anxiety can affect
Mother and Baby When a pregnant woman suffers from high levels of anxiety she may develop more physical ailments than other pregnant women, be more likely to request a primary cesarean section and of developing posttraumatic stress disorder and postpartum depression.
Also, long-term anxiety as well as high levels of anxiety are associated with an increased risk of low birth weight, low APGAR and preterm birth.
Lifelong effects associated with maternal stress and anxiety include increased baby’s emotional reactivity, attention problems, fussiness, poor bonding with the baby. The stress hormones triggered by anxiety affect both mother and baby, hindering the emotional and mental development of the baby.
What about taking anxiety medications during pregnancy?
While studies have shown no long-term effects of exposing prenates to these drugs, many clinicians admit that there could be, as there are so few studies on expecting women. Most drugs that treat anxiety fall into the same class of pharmaceuticals as antidepressants, which means some can be tricky to prescribe during pregnancy.
When pondering about medicating her anxiety during pregnancy, a woman should make carefully informed decisions that include risk-benefit analysis, and a good health care provider should always work with her to decide which one offers the most benefits for the lower dose, with fewest risks. This is why many women look for non-medication therapies to work on lessening their stress and anxiety levels.
What you can do
There are effective forms of anxiety relief during pregnancy and no woman needs to feel unsupported. She can also remember that there is another member in her team: the baby, who is there to help her.
Breathing and relaxation techniques have been known to significantly reduce anxiety during pregnancy, without the help of medications. Strategies for self-management have also been found to be effective.
For pregnant women experiencing anxiety, prenatal yoga and meditation have been proven to be an excellent modality to help stabilizing stress hormones.
What also helps is prioritizing your sleep cycle, scheduling a time during the day to slow down and becoming aware of your feelings, taking a 10-minute walk or going swimming and enjoying being in a water environment, like your baby. Music, healthy and balanced meals that favor your emotional and physical energy make you feel better, more positive, as can a massage from a professional or even just spending time your partner.
In my Prenatal Yoga Program program, I have included bonding techniques to help women feeling connected and bonded with their baby throughout pregnancy and beyond.
In addition, I give women information about anxiety because it helps them becoming more aware of their inner environment, triggers and reactions, so that they can change their habits and behavior. Arm yourself with knowledge! Build a support system, spend time with other pregnant women, consider joining an online community to connect with others who are experiencing feelings akin to yours.
All of these strategies, alone or combined, can help pregnant mothers experience less stress and anxiety.
Lastly, remember that you will have your mother instinct, your baby on your side, and thus will trully know what to do when your bundle of positive thoughts, confidence, and joy arrives. You will be the best mother for your baby who will simply need your love.
About the Author
Susana Lopes is the Founder and Secretary-General of Prenatal Alliance, an advocate for World Pregnancy Day – March 22, a Prenatal and Postnatal Yoga Teacher, a Pilates Teacher, a Humanized Pregnancy and Birth Advocate, Speaker, and the author of “Yoga e Maternidade”. Her present work includes guiding women to effectively release stress and anxiety from their body and improve their overall health and connection with their baby.