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Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy

BACKGROUND: Although early case studies have indicated that fear of childbirth can predate a woman’s first pregnancy, the concept of preconception fear of childbirth is largely unexplored. The few studies reporting on the prevalence of preconception fear of childbirth found higher levels than most p...

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Autores principales: Rondung, Elisabet, Magnusson, Susanna, Ternström, Elin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9617446/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36307851
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01512-9
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author Rondung, Elisabet
Magnusson, Susanna
Ternström, Elin
author_facet Rondung, Elisabet
Magnusson, Susanna
Ternström, Elin
author_sort Rondung, Elisabet
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Although early case studies have indicated that fear of childbirth can predate a woman’s first pregnancy, the concept of preconception fear of childbirth is largely unexplored. The few studies reporting on the prevalence of preconception fear of childbirth found higher levels than most prevalence estimates in pregnant populations. However, little is known about women’s fear of childbirth before becoming pregnant. The aim of this qualitative study was to give voice to the experiences of this often-neglected group of women. METHODS: To address the experiences and needs of women who do not dare become pregnant due to fear of childbirth, we conducted nine qualitative interviews and analyzed these using reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS: The women perceived childbirth as an extremely risky event and doubted their abilities to cope with it. With increasing age, the fear became more real. It was associated with thoughts of becoming too old to be able to conceive. The women did their best to cope with fear on their own by seeking information, trying not to think about it, and using multiple strategies to avoid becoming pregnant. Despite expressing a strong wish for professional support, they all described very limited opportunities to receive support from maternal care services. They felt abandoned, left on their own in a stressful and constantly ongoing negotiation with themselves, feeling the pressure to decide whether to dare become pregnant or not. CONCLUSION: In this study, women expressed having experienced fear of childbirth long before a first pregnancy. They felt abandoned as they had to deal with their fear by themselves, without support from maternal care services. The results point to the necessity of an increased awareness of preconception fear of childbirth. We encourage maternal care services to consider their opportunities to support these women.
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spelling pubmed-96174462022-10-30 Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy Rondung, Elisabet Magnusson, Susanna Ternström, Elin Reprod Health Research BACKGROUND: Although early case studies have indicated that fear of childbirth can predate a woman’s first pregnancy, the concept of preconception fear of childbirth is largely unexplored. The few studies reporting on the prevalence of preconception fear of childbirth found higher levels than most prevalence estimates in pregnant populations. However, little is known about women’s fear of childbirth before becoming pregnant. The aim of this qualitative study was to give voice to the experiences of this often-neglected group of women. METHODS: To address the experiences and needs of women who do not dare become pregnant due to fear of childbirth, we conducted nine qualitative interviews and analyzed these using reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS: The women perceived childbirth as an extremely risky event and doubted their abilities to cope with it. With increasing age, the fear became more real. It was associated with thoughts of becoming too old to be able to conceive. The women did their best to cope with fear on their own by seeking information, trying not to think about it, and using multiple strategies to avoid becoming pregnant. Despite expressing a strong wish for professional support, they all described very limited opportunities to receive support from maternal care services. They felt abandoned, left on their own in a stressful and constantly ongoing negotiation with themselves, feeling the pressure to decide whether to dare become pregnant or not. CONCLUSION: In this study, women expressed having experienced fear of childbirth long before a first pregnancy. They felt abandoned as they had to deal with their fear by themselves, without support from maternal care services. The results point to the necessity of an increased awareness of preconception fear of childbirth. We encourage maternal care services to consider their opportunities to support these women. BioMed Central 2022-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC9617446/ /pubmed/36307851 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01512-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Rondung, Elisabet
Magnusson, Susanna
Ternström, Elin
Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
title Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
title_full Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
title_fullStr Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
title_full_unstemmed Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
title_short Preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
title_sort preconception fear of childbirth: experiences and needs of women fearing childbirth before first pregnancy
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9617446/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36307851
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01512-9
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