{"id":21862,"date":"2024-01-02T04:14:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-02T03:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intimina.com\/blog\/?p=21862"},"modified":"2024-01-08T04:14:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T03:14:38","slug":"what-is-maternal-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intimina.com\/blog\/what-is-maternal-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Mothers: What is Maternal Anxiety?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The thing about <\/span>anxiety<\/span> is that it doesn\u2019t discriminate. And because it is so diverse, it\u2019s difficult to give it a definition. It can be entirely unique from person to person.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also doesn\u2019t help that there are a seemingly endless list of things that can bring about anxiety or anxious feelings in general.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This makes it a <\/span>mental health<\/span> issue that\u2019s rife, and those who suffer from it deserve attention and understanding\u2014including moms and moms-to-be.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, for many, the term \u201c<\/span>postpartum depression<\/span><\/a>\u201d sounds familiar. But feeling anxious instead of sad or depressed during <\/a><\/span>pregnancy<\/span> and after having a baby is actually quite common, yet hardly talked about.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is maternal anxiety?<\/span><\/h1>\n

Sometimes maternal anxiety is merely considered to be a normal occurrence for pregnant women or new moms. It often includes a mental preoccupation with having a child.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But actually, it can be more serious than that\u2014it could become a <\/span>medical<\/span> condition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMental anxiety is anxiety that affects women during pregnancy, birth, and the first postnatal year,\u201d <\/span><\/i>says <\/span>Dr. Catherine Green<\/span><\/a>, psychologist. \u201c<\/span>It stops you from doing things, and sucks the joy out of things. That\u2019s when it can become really distressing.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Green goes on to say:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of different forms of anxiety. The typical themes in maternal anxiety tend to be worrying that something bad is going to happen, either to you or your baby, during pregnancy, or postnatally, or perhaps during the birth, or that there\u2019ll be some aspects of parenting that you won\u2019t manage to cope with or tolerate.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

What are the main factors that bring about maternal anxiety?<\/span><\/h2>\n

A recent <\/span>qualitative study<\/span><\/a> was conducted by researchers Prikhidko and colleagues in which they spoke to 17 mothers for 30 to 60 minutes each.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They did this as a means to gather common concerns, and to look at underlying thought processes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the interviews were complete, they were pooled and decoded, then organized into four overarching factors related to maternal anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n

4 factors related to maternal anxiety<\/span><\/h3>\n

As per the above-mentioned study, the four factors related to maternal anxiety include:<\/span><\/p>\n