Anxiety in pregnancy

[firstpregnancy24]

Hi all,

I'm struggling to cope with pregnancy anxiety. I'm 6 weeks 3 days pregnant. For the first week or so after finding out, I was super calm - zen almost! It felt like everything was (finally) working out for us after a bit of a difficult fertility journey with PCOS. I've felt healthy and calm, no nausea, just some mild symptoms.

However in the last week, my anxiety has suddenly gone through the roof. I'm worried about so many things. It's started with some gloss paint we've had done in our hallway - I looked up the risks of solvent paint too late and now feel like I am inhaling horrible chemicals all day and night directly into this poor baby's system. Then this morning I woke up in a panic wondering if our (very old) building of flats has lead pipes, researching how to figure this out, panicking that I've been potentially drinking water with lead in it for years and definitely over this past 6 weeks. I've also had various smaller panics on foods I've eaten, products I've used to wash my face (salicylic acid) and others.

Basically I'm struggling to see the wood for the trees. Every concern I have feels MEGA and I'm finding it hard to figure out which of my worries are 'reasonable' and of concern, and which are irrational and shouldn't be bothering me.

Anyway, I don't know if anyone has advice as such, but I'd love to hear from you if you do.

I haven't yet had my first midwife appointment - I know from reading other threads that I should be able to flag my anxieties with them once I'm booked in. But in the meantime just not sure which things to worry about and which to try to let go.

Thanks for any replies

I don’t know if this advice will be helpful, but maybe give it a go and see if it works.

Get yourself a decent pregnancy book (I’ve been reading “What to expect when you’re expecting” and I really like it, but others might have good recommendations too).

Then, and this is important - when you’re worrying about something, don’t Google it! Look for the answer in the book. If it’s something important, it’ll be in there.

Anything you can’t find the answer for, write it down in a notebook and take the list of questions to your first midwife appointment. Nothing that you’ve mentioned would be considered an emergency, otherwise you would be ill yourself (I’m currently 7+5 and had a food-related panic a couple of weeks ago, spoke to the doctor and he was very much of the opinion that if it hasn’t made me ill, it won’t be making baby ill).

Having a plan like this might help to rationalise what is worth worrying about and what isn’t.

First of all congratulations ❤️ hope your pregnancy goes smoothly full term and you have a healthy baby 🙏 hormones are definitely making your anxiety high... and if you've struggled with conceiving it's understandable your getting worried about what can go wrong....but flip the switch and ask yourself what can go right...stress/worry will only increase your anxiety...when you're feeling that way, keep distracting yourself try not to let the thoughts consume you. Take deep breaths slowly in and out...talk about your worries to friends and family... listen to what they say and it will make more sense to you if your worrying over something or nothing...just to add it's normal to feel scared but not to let it control you. Speak to your health care provider or midwife to ease your anxiety till your scan approaches. Hopefully when you see your baby on screen you will feel much better...Good luck OP ❤️

Hi @Lillers and @Safxxx - thank you both so much for your kind replies and advice. I really appreciate it. I actually just downloaded 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' on my kindle last night so I'll definitely read that, and already it's making me think maybe the paint isn't as big a deal...

I will try your tips to calm down and see things a bit more rationally. Thank you both and hope everything goes smoothly for you both too.