Managing Anxiety when Pregnant After Loss
It is completely natural to feel anxious after a loss. Sometimes it can feel like you are the only person in the world going through this. As much as we and others will tell you everything will likely be fine, it can be hard to ignore that niggle of anxiety.
In this section we give you some resources to help you realise when you are anxious, and how to make yourself feel more grounded. Before we get to grounding exercises, there are also practical things that you can do to help yourself feel a little less anxious such as
Understand when you feel anxious
Certain situations will make you feel anxious. Certain triggers may and you don’t always know when you may feel anxious. How is your anxiety impacting your life and pregnancy? By recognising how your anxiety shows itself, what its symptoms are or patterns of thinking (catastrophising – thinking the worst will happen for example), is it more physical such as tummy aches, headaches or feeling panicky? By understanding how the anxiety manifest means that you can observe it, watch out for the warning signs of it and then ground yourself with a grounding technique or relaxation track.
2. Taking it one moment at a time
You can always plan to go a day at a time and then scale it back if that feels too much. It is really common for parents to do a countdown between scans, and that is ok too
3. Grounding techniques
Work out what grounding technique works for you. Scans will cause anxiety. There will also be moments where you may feel so in your head or panicked that having a grounding technique to focus on can anchor you
4. Hypnobirthing and relaxation tracks
Having a track that makes you feel relaxed can give you a break from thinking and help you to feel more relaxed once the track has finished.
5. Managing scanxiety
Having someone with you and having a sonographer that understands and is sympathetic to your situation can make a difference. What would be most helpful to you? At your 12 week appointment you can ask for the scan before they go over the medical history. You can ask them to turn the sound off until they detect a heartbeat. You can ask them to turn the screen away from you. You can close your eyes until they tell you it is safe to open them.
6. Journaling
Getting everything out and onto paper means that it is not swirling round your head snowballing! Focussing for a few minutes a day on writing down your thoughts can help you feel less anxious. Tips for journaling if you are not sure where to start include identifying what they problem is, understanding the belief and acknowledging how it feels such as I am scared, because I have experienced loss before, and I feel overwhelmed, or I want to feel hopeful, but I am worried about tempting fate, this feels irrational, for example. The journaling can be as long and detailed or short and succinct as you like.
7. Affirmations for pregnancy after loss
Sometimes affirmations can help. We have created a list of affirmations here, some will resonate, some won’t. Print them out, and cut out the ones that make you feel better. Look at the card and repeat the affirmation to yourself for a few minutes until you feel more mindful and relaxed. Notice how it feels as you breathe this mantra in.
8. Create a birth plan so your care team know how to support you
Use our birth plan for rainbow babies to identify sensitive triggers, so that you feel empowered about birth and so that your care team know best how to support you through their words, action and compassion.
9. Self Care and self love
Eat well. East well and gorge on carbs! Rest. Exercise, but only if you want to. Don’t feel you have to. Take your vitamins. As much as you may want to take your mind off things saying no to work, family or social commitments that you know will zap your energy means you have more energy for you.
If your doctor has precribed high dose folic acid and/or low dose aspirin, or whatever else, knowing that you are doing these basic things, that you are probably already doing anyway, can give you some reassurance that you are doing everything you can to be healthy in pregnancy.
10. Have a plan of what to do if X,Y, Z happens
This could be grounding technique, relaxation track and then if you still feel anxious talk to a midwife. Any plan where you know there is a short basic order that you can put in place very quickly. It is easy to forget how to calm yourself down when you feel panicked.