From the moment you find out that you’re pregnant, you immediately experience a surge of emotions. For some women, the emotions experienced are pure joy and happiness, while other women experience panic and fear… nonetheless, whatever emotion is felt, the fact remains that life as you know it will never be the same.
The fact that life will never be the same isn’t a bad thing either… sure, it might be scary at first because it’s a life adjustment that you’ll have to get used to but once you get adjusted, you’ll be just fine. You get to shop for all the adorable baby clothes, shop for cute maternity clothes, and just enjoy the pure bliss of pregnancy… Now, just as you can enjoy all the blissful aspects of pregnancy, reality will set in and you can’t escape the worries and fears you experience during pregnancy as well.
It’s perfectly normal to have fears about your pregnancy, especially if it’s your first one. When you go to your doctor appointments, your doctor, of course, will tell you what you can expect during your pregnancy but your doctor will also have to tell you about the risks involved with your pregnancy as well, especially if you’re a high-risk pregnancy. They don’t tell you the risks to scare you… They tell you to inform you so that you can move forward in your pregnancy informed and educated and take the necessary efforts to stay healthy for you and your baby.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Look On the Internet!
Now, by law, doctors have to inform you of all the risks involved with pregnancy… the good, the bad, and the ugly. And although it’s not their intention to scare you, it scares you anyway. So what does everyone do when they are scared and want to know information about a particular condition, symptom, or side effect? They look on the internet…
Looking up things that the doctor tells you on the internet is one of the worst things you can do during your pregnancy. The internet will have you stressing out over nothing most times with misinformation but there is also correct information out there that can be very helpful to you and can prevent you from making unnecessary trips to the doctor. You just have to make sure you’re getting your information from a trusted site.
Biggest Pregnancy Fears
As mentioned earlier, it’s perfectly normal to have fears during your pregnancy because the only thing you want is a healthy baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes and the thought or possibility of that not happening for your child is terrifying. The good news is that with some of these fears, there are steps you can take to lower your risk or chances of complications. Take a look at some of the biggest fears women experience during their pregnancy.
1. Not Getting Pregnant
If you’ve tried to conceive for at least a year and haven’t been able to, you are experiencing infertility issues. According to the Office on Women’s Health, 10 percent of women struggle to get pregnant so it’s not terribly uncommon to experience but you should talk to your doctor to see what’s causing your infertility.
How to Ease Your Fear
Struggling to get pregnant isn’t an easy situation to cope with… it can be quite devastating, actually. The biggest thing you can do to ease this fear is to check out all of your options. There are several options out there for women struggling with fertility so talk to a fertility specialist to see which option will work best for you.
2. Not Being Able to Lose the Pregnancy Weight
This particular fear might sound a little selfish or superficial to some but it is indeed a real fear. Lots of pregnant women take advantage of the whole “eating for two” when they’re really just using that as an excuse to overeat and eat the things they want… That’s how women gain the supposed “pregnancy weight”… it’s not all from the baby!
How to Ease Your Fear
Eat nutrient-rich foods and exercise! It’s okay to indulge in the foods you enjoy during your pregnancy but you just have to watch what and how much you eat. It will allow you to get the weight off easier and quicker after you have the baby. You’ll be back to your fabulous self post-baby in no time!
3. Birth Defects
On average, 97 out of every 100 babies are born without birth defects but as a pregnant woman, you fear your child will be one of those three that will have birth defects. With birth defects, they’re either structural or functional and these abnormalities cause physical or mental disabilities. Abnormalities like Down Syndrome and webbed feet are a couple of examples of physical and mental abnormalities due to birth defects.
How to Ease Your Fear
From the moment you decide to start trying for a baby, and even before (because more than half of the world’s pregnancies are not planned), start living and acting like you are already pregnant. Start taking folic acid, exercise and eat a well-balanced diet, and stop smoking or drinking. Because most pregnancies are unplanned, not changing some lifestyle habits until after you find out can be too late sometimes so adjust your habits early on.
