Renee, mother of four Becoming a mother is a life transition which our culture greatly underestimates. Few other life changes are as complete and irreversible, and few life events provoke as much ambivalence. Somewhere in between lies the reality of motherhood. Pregnancy is a journey. At the end, a woman gives birth not only to a baby, but also to her own identity as a mother.
Pregnancy is therefore an emotional and psychological as well as a physiological transformation.
Your adjustment to pregnancy and labor is enhanced when you express your anxieties about motherhood. If your concerns remain buried or denied, or if fears about childbirth are ignored or minimized, the inevitable natural stress of labor and delivery may intensify these anxieties. Gershon Levenson and Sol Shnider at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine found that anxiety during labor decreased oxytocin, a hormone that stimulates contractions, resulting in dysfunctional labor patterns. Fear in labor may also contribute to a reduction in the supply of oxygen to the baby. Many scientific studies have documented the impact of emotional variables on the labor process, yet medicine has almost never offered women a means for coping with these natural anxieties, perhaps assuming that fear was abnormal, and therefore beyond normal prenatal care.