24+4 Anxiety

[TTCX2]

Hello all,

Hope you’re all doing well in your pregnancies and trying to conceive journeys! Looking for a bit of advice, I’m 24+4 with my 2nd baby and struggling a bit with anxiety which ultimately is leading me to feel low as well. I’m generally quite a high functioning anxious person and have been on sertraline and fluoxetine in the past when I’ve needed it.

I don’t know what is triggering it and not everyday is as bad but I seem to cope for a few days/weeks at a time and then it culminates with feeling really intense anxiety in my body and overwhelming feelings of how I can cope or will cope. I guess I’m just looking for others experiences on things that might help and what people’s experiences are of going back on anti-depressants whilst pregnant? I really wanted to avoid it and had tapered off successfully whilst trying to conceive but I don’t want to end up really unwell towards the end of my pregnancy or post birth.

grateful for any input 🥰 thanks for listening!

Can you contact your midwife and ask if they can refer you to perinatal mental health team? Usually they have specific MH trained midwives that I've heard can be really helpful.

I had a routine midwife apt at the start of July and mentioned my mental health and the general consensus was that If I’m ‘coping’ I should just continue to do so. She kind of just alerted to the fact there is criteria to be referred and obviously I’m not high tariff enough 🫣I definitely will raise again though at my next apt, thank you @JD90

I'd counter her assessment that you are 'coping' if I'm honest, especially if you're also worried about things escalating! Masking how much things are getting to you is not coping. I really do hope you feel better and more settled soon.

Yeah I definitely do a lot of masking and I think that’s why the anxiety peaks sometimes. I then get over that peak and just return as normal but don’t want to keep going over the same pattern, it’s exhausting. Thank you for taking the time to reply 🤍

Anyone experiencing the same? 🥰

Loads of mums are on anti depressants (often sertraline) in pregnancy. Your mental health is important for the wellbeing of the baby, so it's well worth speaking up if you're going downhill.