Fresh Parent or Pregnant? - Stop Worrying!
Fresh Parent or Pregnant? - Stop Worrying!
Are you worried and scared about your pregnancy or child all the time? It’s time to stop before you hurt them!
When we stress about our children's safety and well-being, we channel that stress onto them. They are literally connected to us with a cord, absorbing everything we’re consuming and radiating.
I have a pregnant friend who spends her time browsing the internet for all the possible problems and complications that could occur during pregnancy. Every time the baby doesn’t move for a few hours or she feels anything remotely unexpected, she panics and wants to visit the emergency room. Her heart is in the right place, but all she’s doing by worrying is harming her baby. I’ll be honest here. I think that she’s in for a challenging parenthood, and it will all be her doing!
We believe that by worrying about all the possible things that can go wrong, we’ll be able to prevent them or, at the very least, react immediately and save them. Unfortunately, this is a mental fallacy.
We cannot predict, prevent, or repair everything that can happen to our children. We just can’t. But we can go insane worrying about their health and safety.
The simple, albeit unpleasant and scary facts are:
Anything can happen at any time, and there is nothing we can do about it.
There are things we control, but a million more things are completely out of our control. When we’re talking about our children's health, particularly during pregnancy, we’re more or less helpless in preventing anything that could potentially go wrong. We need to learn to accept that.
We can’t see the future or prepare for every possible scenario. It’s impossible. What will be, will be. No amount of worrying will prevent any of it! It will just ruin our experience of today.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people: pregnancy spontaneously terminates, children get sick, and they die. It is terrible, but it is life.
Most of the time, though, everything turns out okay.
When we stress about our children's safety and well-being, we channel that stress onto them.
Especially during pregnancy and early years! They are literally connected to us with a cord, absorbing everything we’re consuming and radiating. This is a sure way to stress the little babies out so they cannot sleep and get sick all the time.
Did you know the doctors actually recommend lifelong smokers not to quit smoking during pregnancy because the damage and danger of the mental stress caused by the addiction is worse than harm from the nicotine getting absorbed by the baby? Think about this.
While you can’t influence a whole specter of possible issues with pregnancy, you do control your input and output. You control what you consume (eat, drink, watch, read), and you control what thoughts you’re sending to your unborn child.
Don’t fill them up with trash, junk, nicotine, alcohol, or drugs.
But also don’t fill them up with the energy and thoughts of fear, suffering, disease, and death!
Eat well, and send out thoughts of love, strength, and happiness instead.
Since this is more or less the only thing you control, do the best you can. I promise you there is almost nothing worse for your unborn child than you stressing out over their future and their wellbeing. You’re literally, factually hurting your child, and it isn’t preventing anything.
Stop it! Stop it right now!
The more we think about problems and dangers, the more we invite them into our lives. Unfortunately, while we may feel like we’re doing the right thing, we’re actually hurting our children with our good intentions!
I can’t even begin to tell you how many parents have caused their children to get sick or a hell of a lot worse. Some ended up in hospitals, comas, or in the afterlife because their parents couldn’t stop themselves from worrying and being overprotective. You don’t want that on your conscience. Delete those thoughts!
Let’s reframe worrying out of your life.
Keep this truth at the forefront of your mind every time you get scared and begin worrying about the pregnancy of your baby:
The more you worry, the more harm you are directly causing your baby.
The more relaxed and calm you are, the better the odds your baby and pregnancy will be okay.
The best thing you can do for your baby is to be relaxed, happy, and trust that everything will be okay.
The worst thing you can do for your baby is to be stressed, worry, and fear for their wellbeing.
Try these mental reframes to calm yourself when you begin worrying:
Your old framing: By worrying, I am helping my baby.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re not doing them any favors. You’re not helping the baby, and you’re not preventing anything bad from happening.
Your new reframe: By worrying, I’m directly hurting my baby!
This reframe will help you remember that when you worry and fear for your unborn (or born) child, you’re hurting them. You’re indirectly increasing the odds of something terrible befalling the baby and of the baby getting sick or the pregnancy going bad. Stress is a killer! Avoid it with everything you’ve got.
Let’s make this our next reframe: Stress is a killer, and calm is a healer.
The odds of something terrible happening to your child are statistically negligible. But as you worry, fear, and stress about their safety, you are certain to harm them right now!
One is a distant possibility out of your control.
The other is a certainty entirely under your control.
During pregnancy and early childhood, your number one duty and goal is to be calm, relaxed, optimistic, and happy. It’s not to worry about the baby. That’s how you hurt them without actually starving, poisoning, or physically abusing the child!
Stop it! You love your child, so give it love, not fear.
Worrying about your child during pregnancy is causing severe stress to your body and, by literal extension, to your unborn baby. We always talk about how psychological abuse is similar to physical abuse, if not worse. Causing your baby stress is abuse. You may not do it deliberately with ill intentions, but the result is the same—a stressed-out child prone to disease and weakness.
The unpleasant truth visualized.
I’m going to give you one more visual deterrent for worrying about your baby and pregnancy. It’s not going to be pretty, and that’s the point. Ready?
Imagine your child in front of you.
He or she is a beautiful, smiling baby. So innocent and spongy. They know nothing and are completely at your mercy in their early years. They rely on you for their survival. Your babies need your milk, warmth, hugs, kisses, and the sense of “everything will be alright, little one. Mommy’s here.”
That is heaven for the baby. And if this is heaven, what is hell?
Scenario one:
You’re holding the baby in your arms. They’re happy and calm. You sing to them lullabies to help them sleep. You tell them how much you love them, how everything is going to be alright. You kiss them on the forehead and stroke the thin hair on their heads.
They feel safe. They feel taken care of. They have all they need. So they drift into sleep in your arms, knowing and trusting that their mother will keep them safe.
Scenario two:
You’re holding your baby with arms extended, looking dead into their eyes, shaking them violently, and screaming at them about how they’re going to get sick and die. “Everything is wrong with the world. People are going to hurt you,” you tell your baby. “You should be scared!” You keep shaking them, and they’re crying in panic.
They don’t understand what is happening, and they’re frightened to their core, poor things. You continue: “You can’t eat anything - it’s all poison! You’re going to break your neck if you fall. I can’t help you. The world is dangerous, and you’re almost certain to suffer immensely. I’m so scared for your health and well-being. I’m terrified of something happening to you! Be afraid, be very afraid!”
The baby cries and cries. They’re shaking and nervous. They can’t sleep. How can anyone sleep when so many things are out to get them? When even their deity, their mother, is frightened to the core. This world they were born into must be hellish. All this fear! How are they ever to fall asleep and dream of better things? They’re clinching their muscles, they can’t even breathe.
You didn’t like this second scenario, did you? Me neither. Please don’t be like that! When you worry and stress about your pregnancy and your unborn baby, you’re the mother from scenario number two.
You’re pushing all that fear, uncertainty, and stress onto your baby. They’re not equipped to handle it! Your babies feel everything, and they will feel everything long after they’re born.
When you’re afraid, they’re afraid.
When you’re stressed out, they’re stressed out.
And when you’re happy and calm, they’re happy and calm.
Don’t you want your baby to be happy and calm?
Next reframe: When I’m happy and calm, my baby is happy and calm. When I’m stressed and afraid, my baby is stressed and afraid.
Focus on the good. Imagine only good. In your mind, see your kids healthy and strong! Now, I know this isn’t easy. I do. In fact, becoming a parent is the scariest thing you’ll ever encounter unless you live in the jungle and are running for your life all the time. I recant that. If you are a loving parent, you will fear for your children's safety and life a hell of a lot more than your own!
Listen. Bad things can and do happen. Sometimes, pregnancies don’t work out, usually in the first few weeks, rarely after that. But it does happen. Children get sick, they get hurt, and they die. There is nothing you or I can do about it. Life is inherently unpredictable, unstable, and uncertain. There doesn’t have to be any good reason for it. It’s no one’s fault. It couldn’t have been prevented. In reality, though, most pregnancies prevail, and most children are just fine.
Ultimate reframe: I can’t see the future. What will be, will be. We’ll deal with it if and when the time comes to the best of our abilities. That is all we can ever do.
I’ve suffered from future anxiety all my adult life. It’s taken me a long time to accept that life is inherently uncertain. I was overthinking everything and lived with a suffocating feeling within my chest. At one point, it even managed to ruin my health entirely, and I burned out.
If I was able to accept that I can’t see the future, I have limited control over my life, and that worrying doesn’t help, SO CAN YOU.
I promise you that life, on the other side of worry and constant anxiety, is a much nicer place to be. Coincidently or not, people who worry less are also the people who experience less stress and problems. By extension, so do their children.
Decide right now!
If being relaxed and calm doesn’t come naturally to you, it will be a decision you make every day. Make it! If not for yourself, do it for your baby.
In time, you will adapt, and it will become more and more natural and automatic. This former life of self-torment and constant worry will seem like a distant past. And then you will realize how stupid and useless it was to suffer so needlessly.
Start working on releasing your fears, worries, and anxieties regarding your pregnancy and your baby. What will be, will be, and there is nothing you can do about it. NOTHING!
The world can be stressful, but most of that stress lives within our minds. Don’t let it spill onto your baby. Be the wall that stops all that worry from reaching your baby. Be the mother from scenario one, not two.
While you may read about all sorts of problems and dangers for your children, the simple fact is that most grow up just fine. Those incidents are just the ones that make the news, and they make the news because they are so very rare.
The odds are highly tilted in your favor.
You’re almost certainly going to be alright, and so will your baby. You’re both strong and smart. You’ll deal with whatever life throws in your path. Trust in that, and let the chips fall as they may.
Good luck to us all on the journey of parenthood!
Thanks for reading. I like you. Subscribe, and I’ll deliver new stories to your mailbox. You can choose topics you’re interested in and will receive only those.
If you enjoyed the story, help spread the word and remember to like, share, comment, cross-post, and restack this post. Follow this LINK if you want to do more. You are appreciated.