Pregnancy and anxiety

[User0000011]

Anyone experienced going through pregnancy and having anxiety? How did you cope?!

I'm 14 weeks and I'm really struggling. The hormones have made it worse for me.
I'm constantly on edge about the pregnancy (I think part of that is due to previous miscarriages). Constantly thinking the worst of every single situation I'm put in. Constantly feeling down. It's even got to the point where I'm having nightmares of losing the baby etc. It's effecting my relationship and my overall mental health.

Thank you x

I also have BPD, and that's not helping either x

I really feel for you. I have terrible anxiety, depression and panic attacks when I was pregnant. It's totally consuming and I've honestly never felt so low. I'm a naturally anxious person but think that added to the pregnancy hormones sent me to a really bad place. I ended up doing CBT and then some counselling. I also found that it did improve become more manageable from about half way. Have you spoken to your GP at all? As you're pregnant they'll fast track you for CBT.

@User0000011- Hello poppet, I’ve set up a pregnancy anxiety support thread, I’ll send you the link.
Have also suffered with anxiety during my pregnancy, I also had a loss last year. I had a very difficult year kinda one bad thing happening after the other so hard for me now to be in a positive mindset of something going right for me if that makes any sense?!
I’m 31 1/2 weeks now and remember feeling at my worst when I was around the stage you are. Apparently there is some peak in hormones around that stage which can make things seem worse?!
Things that have helped me... focusing on the things I CAN do to help baby. So eating well, drinking lots of fluids, taking pregnancy vitamins and keeping as active as I can.
Trying not to be fearful of the anxiety and accepting it’s there. Often fighting it is the reason it can become consuming and overwhelming. You will get through this 💜

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/3611423-Pregnancy-anxiety-support-thread

I had anxiety during and after pregnancy; you're not alone by any means. Have you spoken to your GP or midwife at all? They'll have seen this before and can offer help and support. Don't feel you have to minimize it when you talk to them, either - when I saw my GP at first, I said I was "a bit stressed" and things like that, which made it sound not too bad, and they didn't offer me as much help as they did when I said "I feel anxious all the time, struggle to breathe, constantly feel as though I can't cope any more".

Please make sure you access all the help you can, there are things that will help you.

Thank you for your replies!

I haven't spoke to GP or midwife about it or anything due to the fact that a health visitor once referred me to the GP for depression and he turned me away and said because my children make me happy I can't have any kind of depression. Makes me kind of nervous to speak to them due to me thinking I'm wasting their time and them thinking I'm ridiculous etc.

I do hope, as above, that it will settle. I just wish I could control myself a bit more, if that even makes sense x

That's a terrible response from the GP. Can you go back and see a different one?

Or, speak to the midwife at the hospital, and explain what you said here about what your GP said, and that you felt you were brushed off. There may be a mental health team in the maternity department, and you could be referred to them instead.

That really is an awful response from your GP - I agree with the poster above and would speak to your midwife or ask to speak to another GP. Really sorry to hear that you had that very ignorant reaction when feeling the way you do.

Alternatively you could access private counselling that is what I did and I found it a great help. You can use this directory to find someone local to you www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists

As well as seeing a therapist I also found it helpful to breaks everything down into very small steps. I took each week at a time, I tried to take it as easy as possible, did a little light exercise each week and didn't post anything about my pregnancy on social media. I found the pregnancy fitness class that I joined really supportive/helpful too.

I’m same. 17 weeks today, leaving the office yesterday noticed that my knickers were wet, started googling “water breaking at 17 weeks”, read all the horrible stories, could hardly breath on tube/train and my heart was about to jump out. Was also hijacking the local group earlier yesterday about irregular baby movements which I think are too low down. And the more you know (aka use google) about what can go wrong the worse it gets. My mum said she was worried and me and later my brother were born first thing she did is counted our toes/fingers. She just wasn’t aware of any other things that can go wrong, lucky them back in a day not having google

Thank you. I will speak to my midwife next time I see her. And I will try taking it one step at a time.

@Worriedmum97 yes. I've done something similar (searching things on google). I also saw a post on facebook earlier this week about a lady who sadly found out her baby passed away at her 20 week scan, and it sent my anxiety through the roof. I message my partner at least once a day when hes at work telling him how I'm concerned that our baby will die etc. He tries his best to reassure me bless him but nothing like that helps. I wake up every night crying due to nightmares. I just cant control it. It never goes away. Not even when I'm sleeping. It's so overwhelming and draining x

Hi, I could have written this post - I feel exactly the same as you. I will be 10 weeks on Monday and although I had a scan at 7 weeks and saw baby's heartbeat, I'm a ball of nerves. When I say a ball of nerves, I really mean that I'm having constant anxiety and panic attacks. It doesn't help that I lost all of my symptoms virtually overnight 10 days ago and I'm so worried that the worst has happened. You're totally not alone in this and it sounds as though we have the same fears. Sending you hugs x