5 Reasons it is Good to Worry About Birth
by Andy Mayer
A worry is a thought or feeling that causes you to feel anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems. If your problems are actual then at least you know what you have to work with. If your worries are “made up” based on stories you have heard or beliefs you have about birth then there is some work you can do to minimise the potential of the negative event. Worries are generated by Fears usually of the unknown immediate future. Validation and Invalidation are key.
Why are worries good?
- Worry can be used to motivate you and your partner to find out how to diminish the issues that cause concern
- Worries provide fuel to ask questions of your health care providers
- Worries make you question yourself and what you can do ie take responsibility
- Worries give you choice
- worries mean you are not taking things on face value and you care about how your baby is born
Worries are often unfounded and that is where the problem lies. The best way to approach worries is to:
- ascertain the likelihood of what you are worried about happening ie ASK your health care provider. Is your worry real or imagined.
- learn about and act on preventative methods or methods to enable you to cope with the worrying event
- engage the assistance of a trained practitioner to find solutions to worry. This can be a birthing hypnotherapist, doctor, psychologist or midwife.
Often well meaning friends and relatives enhance your worry by telling you negative stories and generalising the negative things about pregnancy labour and birth. Some women feed their worry by watching Tv shows about birth emergencies or by googling problems that occur. I was there myself once too! I dreaded birth. These stories and shows normalise problems and give women a negative focus point instead of realistic and helpful strategies for labour and birth.
The main worries I have come across in birth education are women are:
- Scared of losing control
- worried about not being able to cope
- Scared of pain
- worried about their partner skills
- staff not meeting their birth wishes in hospital
- knowing more about birth will make their worries worse
The worry becomes compounded because the woman is dominated by her fear. It is a vicious cycle but one that is easy to break with a little bit of reading and practise of skills and relaxation methods.
This is typical of the type of email I receive regularly.
“I haven’t even finished that skills book I bought but plan to get back onto it this week. I haven’t read anything else either. Part of me thinks the less the better!??!!”
Your worries are your responsibility to understand. By investigating how to remove the fear driving the worry you can achieve satisfaction in pregnancy labour and birth of your special little baby.
Try the Fear Release Audio and birth goals exercise to start the process today.