Many parents feel a mixture of emotions after finding out that they’re expecting.
This is especially true if it’s their first child. One of these feelings could be anxiety, which is a worry of the future.
While some worry is normal, it can develop into something more intense, known as antenatal anxiety or anxiety during pregnancy.
To clarify, anxiety during pregnancy can occur to either parent, and not just mothers.
In any case, early recognition and treatment is essential to maintain the parent’s mental health.
Signs of Anxiety During Pregnancy
Unlike a normal and healthy amount of worrying during pregnancy, antenatal anxiety is on another level.
It is often more severe and can even be debilitating.
This means that it can affect your quality of life, your work and other daily routines.
The symptoms of anxiety are much more intense and can last for much longer than the usual feelings of trepidation that follow parenthood.
These intense feelings may build up over time, and get more severe if left untreated.
In some parents, the onset of anxiety is very sudden, but it also clears up just as fast as it happens.
Here’s how you can recognise some of the symptoms of anxiety during pregnancy:
- Have intense feelings of fear, worry or stress most of the time
- May not know why you’re feeling on edge, or recognise that you’re feeling like this for no specific reason
- Overcome by fear so much so it affects your ability to live life normally
- Be afraid of leaving the house, or going to work
- Experience panic attacks
- Have difficulty sleeping and suffer from insomnia due to the influx of negative thoughts
- Suffer from muscle aches and pains from having tense muscles while doing daily tasks
- Feeling anxious about your baby’s wellbeing
- Seek constant assurance about yours and your baby’s health
- Have negative and often baseless fears about your wellbeing or your child’s
- Feeling restless and irritable most of the time
- Experiencing tightness in your chest
What Is a Panic Attack
In the previous section, we saw panic attacks as being listed as one of the signs and symptoms of antenatal anxiety.
Panic attacks are something that people who suffer from anxiety commonly experience.
Apart from the mental experience of intense and sudden fear and nervousness, panic attacks are characterised by certain physical symptoms including:
- Shaking
- Disorientation and confusion
- Nausea
- Dizziness and light-headedness
- Heartbeats which are irregular and faster than usual
- Breathlessness
- Cold sweat
- Chest tightness or pain
Most panic attacks last about 5 minutes to half an hour. They’re not dangerous but they can be really frightening.
To clarify, the symptoms of a panic attack resemble a heart attack and this leads patients to believe that they might die or collapse into unconsciousness.
In the event of a panic attack, doctors suggest that you can take some simple steps to minimise the effects.
For starters, you should remind yourself that none of the threats you feel are real, and that you’re in a safe and stable environment.
Some experts also suggest ‘reality exercises’, whereby you recite and list out the things you feel, see, hear and touch.
This reinforces your sense of reality and helps restore calm to your mind, subconsciously validating that there is nothing wrong.
Secondly, take deep breaths while counting to 5, hold your breath while counting to 5 and exhale while counting to 5 as well.
This will help your heartbeat to slow down and lessen the discomfort your feel from a pounding heart.
In any case, riding out the panic attack is possible.
Always keep in mind that though the episode feels very real and scary, panic attacks do not have any ill effects on your physical health.
Also, breathing and reality exercises help to calm your body and mind.
Types of Anxiety During Pregnancy
Anxiety during pregnancy can take several forms that are characterised by the things that trigger them and the result of that anxiety.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
This type of anxiety does not have a specific trigger.
Basically, it involves being overly worried about various pregnancy and birth issues.
It is characterised by constant worry for a majority of the time over a period of three months or more.
Some of the worries parents might have anxiety over include breastfeeding issues, perceived threats to the baby’s health, financial issues after the baby is born, and the like.
Phobias
Parents with anxiety during pregnancy can also develop specific phobias as part of their condition.
Phobias are intense fears of certain objects, places and situations.
Some examples include a phobia of the birthing process, emetophobia or the fear of vomit, fear of bodily changes, phobia of breastmilk and so on.
Panic Disorders
Panic disorders usually consist of bouts of intense fear, so much so that the parent feels like they cannot function and that the world is closing in on them.
In short, it is a period of time when the parent experiences a series of panic attacks and anxiety about when the next panic attack may happen.
Panic attacks can happen without triggers, and can happen suddenly.
Each attack can last a few minutes, or up to an hour.
Patients often feel that their life and feelings are spiralling out of control.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety or social phobia is the fear of being out in public or in the company of other people.
Parents who experience this are intensely afraid of judgement from others regarding their child, their parenting skills or others.
This makes them keep away from others as the worry that they may be insulted, judges and humiliated in public.
Treatment of Anxiety During Pregnancy
So, can anxiety during pregnancy be treated?
The answer is yes.
If you feel that your worries have developed to a level where it is disrupting your life, please seek help from a healthcare professional.
Your condition will first be assessed before anything else.
Treatment options for antenatal anxiety usually involves psychotherapy, medication or a combination of both.
Those who have experienced anxiety before pregnancy may experience these symptoms more intensely.
Although there is no definitive proof of the cause of anxiety during pregnancy, many researchers believe that the changing hormone levels have a part to play.
Treatment involves a period of trial and error to see what works best for you.
So, don’t give up and do try the recommendations put forward by your doctor.
Just know that you’re not alone in this and many people are here to help and support you.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice from Motherhood. For any health-related concerns, it is advisable to consult with a qualified healthcare professional or medical practitioner.
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