There is a phobia that only affects women, specifically 2-3% of the female population and to which less attention is paid than it should be. We are talking about homophobia or the fear of becoming pregnant and childbirth, a disorder that can prevent you from starting a family due to intense and disproportionate fear. We tell you everything about homophobia in our dictionary of phobias.
It is important to give visibility to this problem in order to help women who suffer from homophobia to overcome their fears and be able to be mothers. Biologically and evolutionarily, women are born with the instinct to be mothers. Respecting your position, whatever it may be, if you reject the idea of being a mother, I invite you to ask yourself the real reason behind that rejection. If you identify any fear, don’t you think it’s worth working on and giving motherhood a chance? Many women who have overcome homophobia are mothers who feel fulfilled and happy today.
What is homophobia?
Zoophobia is a persistent, irrational, and disproportionate pathological fear of becoming pregnant or giving birth. Women who are affected have this fear since adolescence, and often have been taking contraceptive measures for some time to avoid pregnancy. Most of them, when they get pregnant, want to have a scheduled caesarean section.
It might be thought that it is not a serious problem, since having some fear of the changes that occur in the body during pregnancy is normal and logical. But when fear becomes pathological preventing you from living the life you really want, it is worth working on it and learning to overcome it. The same thing happens with childbirth, a moment that you can understand as precious or as a nightmare.
Fear and all, most women who want to be mothers embark on the adventure of a pregnancy overcoming those fears. Once they are mothers, when they have their baby in their arms, all their fears, worries and bad moments disappear. Women who are able to face these fears without giving up their desire to be a mother do not suffer from homophobia.
Women who suffer from homophobia feel extreme fear of becoming pregnant. And for this they can even avoid sexual relations. Can you imagine the number of problems that can result from this phobic disorder? The fear of pregnancy is so intense and excessive that it invades all areas of life.
The most common causes of homophobia
It is common for women who suffer from homophobia to have had some previous psychological alteration. As with all phobias, homophobia can develop from having experienced a traumatic experience related to pregnancy or childbirth, or develop after having seen an explicit video of what is happening at that moment or having heard the experiences of other women.
People who have suffered sexual abuse can also develop this phobia of becoming pregnant or even having sex.
There are two types of homophobia that can better clarify the causes or origin of this fear. Primary homophobia is experienced by those women who have never become pregnant because fear leads them to avoid this situation. On the other hand, secondary homophobia is suffered by those women who have already gone through that experience. If they have had a complicated pregnancy or a difficult delivery, they are terrified of the idea of living through that situation again.
Symptoms and consequences of homophobia
The symptoms of homophobia are: anxiety (nervousness, palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness,) or panic attacks at the idea of becoming pregnant.
The behavior that produces a phobia is to avoid the situation. Of course you can spend your whole life without having to be a mother. Of course, not having children is not a problem, as long as it is a decision and not avoidance due to a phobic disorder.
There is no obligation to be a mother. But not wanting to get pregnant becomes a disorder when you avoid it out of fear. And in this case, it is necessary to seek treatment.
Zoophobia treatment: how to remove the fear of getting pregnant?
To overcome a phobia psychological help is needed and cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective. With this therapy, that distorted initial thought is worked on until it becomes a useful and rational thought, the manifest physiological activation, and the exposure in imagination to those situations that produce intense fear. From there you can begin to transform the avoidance behavior.
In the treatment of phobias, the usual practice of relaxation techniques is always recommended to reduce the degree of anxiety that they entail. And in the case of homophobia, you can go to a specialist to explain the process of pregnancy and childbirth in a realistic way but without fear. After all, women come into the world to be able to give birth naturally and even without an epidural if they so decide (as our mothers and grandmothers did in their day).