Anxiety During Pregnancy

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I am desperately seeking some support/advice.

I am around 17 weeks pregnant with twins and my anxiety is very bad. I am aware of how bad high levels of cortisol is for a fetus and I am in a loop of not being able to stop worrying. Every time I get anxious I am terrified I am causing damage to my babies or putting them in distress. I feel like every time I kept getting this stomach-churning fear I am bombarding them with toxicity that will cause so much damage. The more I know it is bad the more I worry; I cannot stop.

I am anxious about being anxious and also a strange fear about being pregnant that I had in my teens that I had forgotten about (and seems to have strangely returned now as a grown up).

I spoke to a mental health nurse who, unintentionally, made me feel worse. I am recieving CBT but this does not appear to be working. I have support but just looking for someone who might have gone through the same thing and offer some crumb of hope.x

OP you are giving your babies a wonderful home to grow and develop. You don’t need to do anything else! They have everything they need inside your body, and they don’t mean to cause you so much trouble! They only take the bits they need !

i had severe anxiety during my first pregnancy (which continued into depression until he was about 6 months old, when I then sought medication which 100% saved me). Under an expert pregnancy psychiatrist I remained on meds through my entire second pregnancy and breast feeding and it was so much easier. Both my sons are perfect, with healthy emotions, smart and sports scholars.

you are doing a BRILLIANT job and your babies are fine. Just carry on and don’t judge yourself. You are growing twins!!! Just do that for the coming months!! ❤️

I am anxious about being anxious

This Ted X might help you -

Congratulations on your pregnancy, sorry to hear you’re feeling very anxious.

Do you feel able to say how the mental health nurse unintentionally made you worse?

It does sound from what you’ve written that specialist mental health support during your pregnancy and afterwards may be valuable and worth considering.

Are you on medication for your anxiety?

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP.

I also found CBT unhelpful for my anxiety during pregnancy, however on about the fourth session the practitioner realised I had PTSD, so that diagnosis alone was helpful even though the CBT itself wasn’t.

I too was stressed about the stress, but I think you have to take the stuff about the effects on the baby/babies with a barrel load of salt! Pregnant mothers have been under stress for the whole of human history.

In my particular case, DD1 (now 2.5) is a particularly emotional child, but I have no idea if that has anything to do with my MH during pregnancy. It’s just part of her personality and I love her for it. She’s empathetic and very loving too. There were no health issues and she hit all her milestones easily.

I hope you can take some reassurance from this. The only regret I have is NOT “did I harm DD1?”, but “I wish I’d been able to enjoy the pregnancy more”. So please, if you can, try to relax a bit and enjoy what moments you can x

Hi, I am currently in a similar position, 10 weeks pregnant and wildly anxious in a way that I was never before. I lost my last pregnancy at 11 weeks and it was fairly traumatic I think, so maybe that. I've basically been signed off work for 2 weeks now and started sertraline. My understanding my the mental health team is that the balance of benefits far outweigh any danger to the baby by taking sertraline although I imagine you would want to get advice specific to twins. I don't think CBT is always helpful for trauma/anxiety in these situations and it's worth maybe accessing the mental health team from a different avenue and seeing if a different nurse might have better advice for you.
I have all the sympathy. I've never felt as mad and not myself as I do right now.

https://howwefeel.org/get this app is helping me hugely coming from someone who had very severe panic attacks. If you are in the midst of a panic then I highly recommend this video also, I was given holistic therapy from the NHS during pregnancy which included aromatherapy massages weekly

Thank you so much for your replies, you've made me feel better and reassured.

I am not currently on medication; I have been offered it but was too worried it would have an effect on the babies. I thought I would be strong and carry on without resorting to it, but I have been feeling very depressed and not myself at all. I think it is something I have to do.

The perinatal mental health nurse was lovely but I simply have just became fixated over something she said. She went, "stress can have developmental affects on a baby." My brain latched onto that one thing. It has looped over and over and over again in my head. And I feel very stressed.

I am heart broken that I cannot provide them with a safe place to grow and it's me, their mother, causing this. All because I cannot switch off this anxiety. I end up squeezing my head like PLEASE, just STOP worrying. And I can't.

But hearing that you can have healthy babies despite severe anxiety/mh makes me feel better, thank you for sharing x

I’m assuming the comment was made in the context of offering the medication and your reluctance because of potential risk? Rumination is a tricky aspect to manage - I find it so hard not to do it.

Personally in your circumstances I would take the medication. Your babies need you to be as well as you can be. I totally understand how you feel. However being ill isn’t a failure. It’s a situation that needs medical support. Overcoming anxiety or any other type of mood disorder is not a question of strength in my opinion. There is a biological factor at play as they would be with a lot of physical illnesses and that’s why medication is available. Like antibiotics help fight bacterial infections, it helps the body cope with the anxiety.

I only ever enjoyed my pregnancies in retrospect. I just had to take it a week at a time and forgive myself for not enjoying it because of my worry.

All the very best. Take care.

I'm sorry you are feeling so anxious. I really would take the medication, there is no evidence that it will have any adverse effect on your babies.