Childbirth premonition

[Mumof2wales]

Please can you tell me if I’m being unreasonable or if I should trust my ‘intuition’? I’ve never posted on here before but I’m not sure what else to do.

During my first pregnancy I developed an awful feeling that I would die giving birth and in particular was really worried about having an haemorrhage or an amniotic fluid embolism. I did have a 600ml bleed but it was okay and the birth was straightforward.

Before deciding to go for the second one I looked up all the statistics and reassured myself that I was low risk. Got pregnant easily and I worried less about dying during this pregnancy, but still a little bit. It was another ‘easy’ birth. Straight after the birth my husband said to me something like ‘you see, everything was ok’. As soon as he said this, in my head I thought ‘yes, but it won’t be next time’. I don’t know why I thought this as we hadn’t even discussed another baby at this point.

My son is now 4 and my daughter is 2 and my husband has been saying for a while that he would like to have another child. In my heart, I feel our family is not complete and that I would desperately like to have another child too, but I’m obsessed with the idea that if I do I will die giving birth this time. I just have a strong sense that’s what will happen, especially given what came into my head after the last birth. I correctly predicted the sex of my existing two children and feel strongly that the next one would be another girl.

I’ve spent ages looking online at statistics trying to reassure myself that I would be ok but I’ve just got a strong sense of dread that I won’t be and that I’ll have an amniotic fluid embolism. I’m 34, so not in the lowest risk bracket for age, but I’m a healthy weight, don’t smoke, have no pre-existing conditions. I do have quite bad general anxiety sometimes so think this could be skewing my thought pattern.

Please tell me if I am being totally crazy or if I should listen to this ‘intuition’ and stick with the two I’ve got. Is it possible to make this sort of premonition? Is dying in childbirth a real possibility? I really don’t want to leave the two I have without a mother. My husband thinks I’ve lost the plot, but is happy to go along with whatever I decide.
Sorry for the long post. TIA

I'm sure you will be absolutely find if you do go ahead and have another baby. It's not unusual for potential mothers to fear the worst but rarely does the worst happen.

Good luck.

Your feelings are just that - feelings. That doesn’t mean they don’t seem real to you, but they have no bearing on how healthy your pregnancy will be or how safe your delivery.

Child's sex - 50:50.
Death in childbirth: 8.9 in 100000.

Also you guessed wrong the first two times. I wouldn't set too much store by your premonitions, unless you win the lottery this weekend. Maybe try that first?

It's pretty easy to predict the sex of a baby! It's either a boy or a girl. It's not a premonition.

I don't know if that helps knowing that people who say "See, I knew it was a girl" simply didn't know, they just guessed.

I would always trust anything that I felt was intuition or a really strong gut reaction. However, if you generally are an anxious person then it may well be, as you say, that your feelings are skewed as a result.
I think that given you have a strong sense of dread and fear you will die in childbirth, that I wouldn't put myself through the trauma of pregnancy and the associated anxiety and fear it may bring you. Have you had counselling or other therapies to help with your anxiety? Perhaps that would help you in the long term.

@Bluerussian
"I'm sure you will be absolutely find if you do go ahead"
How can you be sure? How do you know - or is it just that you think OP will be okay?

@PanteneProv
"Your feelings are just that - feelings. That doesn’t mean they don’t seem real to you, but they have no bearing on how healthy your pregnancy will be or how safe your delivery."
Anxiety and stress are feelings and it is known that stress and anxiety can cause illnesses so I'm not convinced your reasoning is correct.

Assuming you are in the UK, your chances of dying in childbirth are next to none. It’s not 1900, even the worst haemorrhages can be readily resolved.

If you want another one, I wouldn’t let your anxiety stop you.

Thank you for your responses. I feel a little reassured. To answer your question, yes I have had help with my anxieties. I did a mindfulness course but that was a while ago. I don't practise day to day. Maybe I should.

Anxiety and stress are feelings and it is known that stress and anxiety can cause illnesses so I'm not convinced your reasoning is correct.

No doubt that anxiety and stress can cause physical symptoms but OP specifically asked if she should trust her intuition and believe her premonition that she will die in childbirth. There is no truth in premonitions. They’re just feelings. They can seem very real, and if they cause anxiety they can lead to physical symptoms, but the fact of having a bad feeling about something doesn’t make it more likely that the bad thing will happen.

I think it's probably quite rational to be a bit fearful of labour. It gets portrayed terribly in films and on tv for a start, there is a lot of 'fear mongering' from some women who have already given birth and seem to get satisfaction from causing other women to worry...and of course there are risks that things can always go wrong. The fact that you have already had 2 pretty uncomplicated labours definitely stacks the odds in your favour that you CAN do it, and that your body is capable of doing it safely.
Definitely agree it might be worth talking your fears over with a GP or a counsellor. If you do get pregnant again you could try hypbobirthing. That really helped calm my nerves and gave me so much confidence in my body.

Thank you. Hypnobirthing is something I will definitely look into.