Parturiphobia (Childbirth Phobia): Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

Parturiphobia or tokophobia is the pathological fear of labor. Far from being an isolated experience, parturiphobia is a fairly common phenomenon among women of reproductive age. For this reason, several psychiatric and psychological studies have addressed it.

Below we explain how parturiphobia is defined, what types exist and how it is usually treated.

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What is parturiphobia?

Parturiphobia is the pathological fear of childbirth. It is also known as tocophobia, which comes from the Greek "tokos" which means "childbirth". It has been recently described in terms of pathology, however, it is an experience that has accompanied many women over time.

Parturiphobia has deep down a discomfort caused by the contradiction between the expectation of being biological mothers and the desire not to be. For the same reason, parturiphobia is considered a multidimensional phenomenon that involves both biological, psychological and social factors.

This phobia has had important consequences in the morbidity of pregnant women and also in the development of children, which is a phenomenon that needs to be studied and worked from various perspectives. areas.

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Irrational fear of childbirth: a pioneering study

Psychiatrists Kristina Hofberg and Ian Brockington have been two of the main references in the description of parturiphobia. In the year 2000 they carried out a qualitative study with 26 women who had an apparently unjustified fear of childbirth.

These authors have defined this phenomenon as the phobic state characterized by a specific anxiety or fear of death during childbirth that precedes the pregnancy, and that leads to avoiding labor by all possible means, even when the woman strongly desires to have a baby.

The study they conducted was with 26 women between 24 and 41 years of age, who were referred by obstetricians and psychiatrists from different hospitals in England. Some of them were married, some were not, most of the women had children without disabilities.

The women had given birth and had depressive episodes, anxiety disorders, or post-traumatic stress disorders. They had been cared for by a psychiatrist for approximately two years.

They were interviewed through an unstructured guide focused on knowing the life history of the women related to their sexuality, obstetric history (including past pregnancies, potential abuse experiences, and use of birth control methods) contraceptives).

Through the interviews, the researchers found similarities in the women's experiences and fear of childbirth. Some reasons that were found behind parturiphobia are the fear of dying during labor, the expectation of pain or unknown suffering, the memory of pain from previous deliveries, among others.

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Types of parturiphobia

As part of the results of their study, Kristina Hofberg and Ian Brockington divided the manifestations of parturiphobia into two types: primary tocophobia and secondary tocophobia.

They also concluded that tocophobia can be considered not as a clinical picture in itself but as one of the symptoms of prenatal depression, generally caused by the woman's belief that she is not capable of labor, at least without dying in the attempt.

Primary parturiphobia

Primary tocophobia is when the fear of childbirth begins before pregnancy, even from the adolescent period. In this case, sexual relations are usually carried out normally, that is, without abuse, and different contraceptive methods are used on a regular basis.

Normally and despite the fear they feel, the pregnancy is planned and carried out, which can aggravate the experience to the point of becoming a phobia. Women describe motherhood as a reason for being and have an overwhelming desire to be mothers, where the need to avoid pregnancy and childbirth is combined with the demand and expectation of being mothers.

Some of the means by which they have calmed this fear has been through scheduling caesarean sections or terminations of pregnancy.

Secondary parturiphobia

Secondary tocophobia is one that occurs after a traumatic or significantly stressful experience. That is to say, it is the phobia that is produced by having had an unpleasant experience in a previous childbirth. For example, severe labor pain, perineal tear, delivery complications due to fetal distress.

Around these experiences, women have expressed that they thought that they or the baby were going to die. Despite this, many women seek another pregnancy, sometimes under the idea that the family is incomplete (for example, to give them a brother who is an only child).

In many of these cases miscarriages have occurred., abortions performed for medical reasons, induced abortions, or elective caesarean sections, which have brought relief to women.

Likewise, several of the women began a sterilization process after giving birth and some women who completed the pregnancy presented symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and even some difficulties in establishing bonds of care with the sons.

some approaches

Parturiphobia is currently one of the great fields of psychiatric and psychological research, which has resulted in the development of specific psychotherapies that reduce the negative childbirth experience.

Likewise, the contradictions generated by motherhood (especially biological) as a demand to overwhelming times have been approached from different perspectives of psychology and other sciences social. In any case, it is an issue that has become relevant in the last two decades and that can generate very important knowledge for women and reproductive activity.