What Is Tocophobia And How To Overcome This Fear?

Processes such as pregnancy and childbirth are quite complicated and alarming in themselves, and many lovely women plan to have a baby in the house long before he is supposed to be born. But, not everyone knows that there is such a category of women, whose representatives do not even allow thoughts about just getting pregnant, let alone carrying and giving birth to a child. This phenomenon, called in medicine "tocophobia", leads to uncontrollable panic attacks, the emergence of all kinds of fears and apprehension.

The content of the article

• 1 One of the isolated phobias
• 2 Information to date
• 3 Types of tocophobia
• 4 Prevalence of phobia
• 5 Predictions for the manifestation of deviation
• 6 How to determine a deviation in a woman
• 7 Is pregnancy possible with tocophobia
• 8 Serious test
• 9 Informed consent to childbirth

Where does the pathological fear of childbirth come from? Is it normal and are there any solutions to the problem.

One of the isolated phobias

Tocophobia is a form of so-called isolated phobias. In this case, all fears are limited only to some, strictly defined objects, events, phenomena. Back in 2002, the British specialized edition "British Journal of Psychiatry" described this phobia as one of the variants of psychological personality disorder. in the article it was noted that medical scientists do not pay due attention to highly specialized specialists. In fact, much more attention should be paid to the study of this problem.

Information to date2

Today, tocophobia is noted in several slightly different variations. As an option, the fear of the generic process itself is different. Fear is based on the fear of injury, pain. Also, these fears can be accompanied by emotions of disgust for their own child. Women with such a phobia perceive the fetus living in their own womb as an "alien" organism. As a result, she simply does not understand how to force herself to become an "incubator" for this "outsider."

Types of tocophobia3

In medicine, there are two types of tocophobia:

• Primary;
• Secondary.

Doctors observe the primary form of deviation in women who have never given birth. It is somewhat strange, where do all pathological fears come from in such cases?

It turns out that the reasons can be psychological and / or physiological fears received in the past, given unpleasant events that carry a sexual connotation (up to rape).

Also, a primary phobia can be caused by watching a film, where the process of childbirth was demonstrated "in all its glory" and caused this terribly painful process in an inexperienced woman to panic.

The secondary form, as the name suggests, can only be diagnosed in women who have given birth. Difficult childbirth, which brought with it hellish sensations, becomes for them the most terrible life event and completely discourages the desire to "go to this business" again.

Prevalence of phobia4

No research institute can provide accurate information on how many women on the planet experience certain manifestations of tocophobia. Some scientists say about 2.5 - 14% of the total female population, which categorically refuses to experience the joy of motherhood. Another part of the researchers cites even more frightening figures - up to 22%.

If such a tendency tends to grow, it is possible that in the near future there will be no one to give birth at all. For the accuracy of the data, the testing involved the female population of different ages, nationalities, experiencing their phobias in varying degrees of intensity.

Predictions for the manifestation of deviation5

With the help of all sorts of predictions, which of the women has a tendency to suffer from such a phobia, unnatural for the mother, modern scientists cannot in any way. All they know is that not only women who have experienced abuse, but also those women who are depressed or suffer from certain anxiety disorders are at risk. If a woman has one (and even worse, several at once) condition, tocophobia enters the fertile soil and begins to bloom and smell like an exotic flower.

How to determine a deviation in a woman6

A woman suffering from this painful psychological deviation outwardly does not differ at all from her compatriots. It is possible to reveal such a deviation in your beloved only after it becomes noticeable that she just flatly refuses to acquire her own children. Moreover, if such a lady nevertheless becomes pregnant (and only due to force majeure, since such “anti-mothers” are protected very carefully), she will in no way agree to give birth and the case will end in abortion anyway.

Separately, it is worth dwelling on downright critical situations, when a woman, on the one hand, really wants her own children, and on the other, she is afraid to get pregnant and give birth to panic.

Is pregnancy possible with tocophobia7

Purely physiologically, tocophobia is not a significant reason for a woman to not become pregnant. On the contrary, as if in spite of fate itself, women suffering from this deviation have an increased propensity to bear children. But, having become pregnant, such ladies begin to experience numerous uncomfortable sensations:

• The movement of the fetus is unpleasant for them and the feeling of disgust increases in direct proportion to their increase;
• Irritating to enlarging abdomen;
• Anxious premonitions do not leave;
• Bad sleep.

In most cases, after the birth of a child, all women with this disease fall into a state of postpartum depression.

Serious test8

Childbirth "tocophobic" is generally accepted only by those doctors who agree to perform a selective caesarean section, taking into account the fact that the patient's fear of labor is in itself a significant indication for surgery.

The same patients who failed to convince the doctor to perform a cesarean section agree with the doctor about pain relief during labor. Such actions often lead to a decrease in labor, which forces doctors to use a vacuum extractor to remove the child from the womb. This procedure itself is very dangerous for a newborn, therefore, giving birth to women with tocophobia is a significant risk both for themselves and for their babies.

Conscious consent to childbirth9

Many are quite logically interested in the question of why women with such a rather serious psychological deviation consciously agree to become pregnant and give birth to their own child.

First of all, most of these ladies do not consider their fear of a disease, believing that they experience completely normal emotions for every woman. And, even if some of them are aware of their diagnosis, they are unlikely to dare to express it aloud to their husband, relatives, and even directly to the doctor who is taking the odes.

So they have to fight their panic fear on their own. Often they give birth to children not for themselves, but for the husband (mother, mother-in-law), or simply because it is supposed to be so - in every normal family there should be a child.