Afraid silly nervous habit has hurt my baby

[Missnicolinda96]

Hi guys. I am currently 13+2 and had a good scan at 12+5. The thing is, throughout my pregnancy I have had a nervous habit where I either hold my breath for a few seconds or breathe in a weird pattern. It's very brief and occurs a handful of times a day. I never hyperventilate or feel like I'm lacking oxygen but this has me terrified for my 20 week scan as I'm convinced baby will either be dead or brain damaged and I might have to have a tfmr. I have GAD and this is taking me over to be honest. I've heard some yoga teachers say they don't do breath exercises in pregnancy and I'm especially scared because baby is getting everything from me as opposed to the yolksac now.

What is the likelihood that I've killed or harmed my baby to the point where a tfmr would be needed??? Help.

The likelihood is zero OP but I would mention it to your GP purely so you can get some support for your GAD.

You won't have done anything to the baby don't worry. But speak to your midwife for help with your anxiety.

Bless you :( have you discussed how you're feeling with your midwife? If not I think you should as they may be able to help you with your anxiety.

Baby will be fine - you won't have caused any type of brain damage or death by what you've described.

I know google can be the devil but if you simply google breathing exercises in pregnancy you will see that it is something that is often promoted and even encouraged to practice to help with mindfulness and towards the end help with labouring and contraction pains etc.

Remember even if you stop breathing for a few seconds or hold your breath - your body is still carrying oxygen and will be able to supply it to the foetus.

Have you spoken to your midwife about this? They might be the best person to reassure you. I think if it's not having an affect on you, like not making you dizzy or anything it's unlikely to affect the baby. I'm not the expert though.

Your baby will be fine. They encourage pregnant mums to go swimming and you’re always holding your breath then aren’t you!
Get some help for your anxiety.

Zero. Your body has systems that you physically can't override when kcomes to breathing.

I wonder if it would be worth speaking to your midwife about perinatal mental health support?

Agree you're not harming your baby with this habit, but perhaps an oximeter (about £20 from Amazon) would help lower your anxiety?

The likelihood is zero. Your baby will be getting oxygen from your blood, through the placenta. Don’t worry at all.

If you've not passed out then there's more than enough oxygen for both you and baby.

It sounds like unusual breathing patterns might cause you to have too much oxygen than too little (like during a panic attack)

I'm guessing yoga teachers don't do breathing exercises because it's harder for heavily pregnant women to take a deep breath when there's a baby taking up the space you'd want your lungs to expand into

Zero chance OP. Remember your baby is connected to your blood stream and gets its oxygen from that, nothing to do with your lungs.

Foetal haemoglobin has a stronger affinity for oxygen than adult haemoglobin. Which means that the baby will still be well oxygenated even if your oxygen sats were starting to drop a little (doubtful even if you're breath holding for a bit...the rise in carbon dioxide when you do this is a stronger driver for you to breathe in than hypoxia...so you basically physically can't drop your blood oxygen level much by breath holding....your CO2 level will force you to breath in again before this happens).