I’m pregnant and due in June, but over the past few weeks I’ve been growing incredibly anxious thinking about giving birth.

Now I did suspect anxiety would rear its ugly head at some point, but I’d been doing so well up until about two weeks ago.

My fears are all around dying during or after childbirth. I have spoken to the midwife about my anxiety and she has said I can be referred to the specialist natal mental health team which I think I will do but the only issue is I’ve had therapy during lockdown and didn’t find that worked particularly well online for me personally. This was before I was pregnant.

I just want some advice from anyone who’s been through similar - how did you cope with actually giving birth and controlling the anxiety? It doesn’t help that everything I read says about how important it is for mum and baby to be “relaxed” but my anxiety has been awful this year already and even when going to scans I feel a normal level of anxiety about the baby which now results in shaking and feeling sick because of how bad the anxiety has got physically this year! 😩

I try to think logically and think no one I know has had anything terrible happen to them and it’s what women’s bodies were designed to do, but in the back of my mind this just means I’ll be that person it happens to.

I’ve emailed about a hypnobirthing course which the midwife also recommended, but will this be helpful if I need a c section? I have a couple of things that may make me more likely to need one.

I would really appreciate any words of wisdom - thank you!