All women at some point in their lives have been afraid of getting pregnant. Who has not ever suffered when seeing that their? Who hasn’t been nervous thinking that a baby may be on the way?
These specific doubts are totally normal. However, when the fear of getting pregnant or childbirth becomes something irrational and conditions your life and your behaviors, we may be talking about a phobia: nomophobia. We have spoken with the psychologist so that she can tell us what exactly it consists of, what the symptoms are and what its treatment is. Attention!
What is nomophobia?
“Tocophobia is the irrational fear of becoming pregnant or giving birth,” says doctor. According to the psychologist, they can differentiate between two types of tocophobia. “Primary tocophobia occurs in those women who have never had children or who become pregnant for the first time while secondary tocophobia is experienced by those women who are already mothers and become pregnant for the second or third time,” she explains.
In the latter case (secondary tocophobia), we could say that the phobia is caused by post-traumatic stress due to bad experiences in previous pregnancies or births. The mother is “traumatized” by this and develops an atrocious panic at the pregnancy.
If I am very afraid of getting pregnant, does that mean I have tocophobia?
No. It is normal for you to be afraid of pregnancy if you are still too young to be a mother, for example, or you do not have the financial stability necessary to raise a baby. As with other phobias that we talk about in our phobia, this fear becomes a phobia when it is irrational and excessive.
You can suffer from tocophobia if…
- You use more than one contraceptive method in your intimate relationships (for example, the pill and the condom) for fear that one of them fails and you get pregnant.
- Even using more than one method of birth control, you after intercourse.
- You even give up having sex with your partner.
- You seriously consider giving up being a biological mother and are constantly looking for other avenues of motherhood such as adoption.
- You have already been a mother and you are considering asking for sterilization so that you do not have to go through that experience again.
- You experience an exacerbated fear for your own life and/or that of the baby.
- You do not trust the medical and health personnel and you believe that they will not adequately attend to your delivery and you will be in danger.
- You experience all Every time you are asked when you are going to have a mother.
Treatment for tocophobia
Depending on the type of tocophobia you suffer from, the treatment will be one or the other. However, in both cases, the most recommended option is to see a psychologist.
- In the case of primary tocophobia, as in the rest of phobias, the most effective treatment is Behavioral Therapy. This therapy consists of gradually and progressively exposing the patient to the feared situation until he no longer fears it. Since in this case the patient cannot be directly exposed to the feared stimulus, that is, pregnancy, the therapy would consist of bringing that person closer to the gestation process. Ace? Accompanying her to the hospital to speak with the gynecologist, the midwife, the obstetrician; showing her de Ella the delivery room… All this with the aim of expanding her information about the pregnancy so that the patient better understands the process and feels more secure and without fear.
- For its part, secondary tocophobia must be treated as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder, the most appropriate therapy being EMDR.