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Coping with life challenges in pregancyThe biggest causes of stress are what I call 'life challenges', otherwise known as 'the unexpected', 'the unplanned', 'life's curve balls' and less than perfect situations. When you fall pregnant, that's a change in itself, both to your body and to your life. You'd think that it would be fair for nature to give you a break from life challenges but, unfortunately, that very seldom happens. It's known that if you have more than the average number of 'stressful life events' happen to you within a certain time, you are more likely to get depression. Let's look at some life challenges that might be seen as causes of depression during pregancy.
1. Unplanned or unwanted pregnancy 2. No Partner 3. Relationship issues 4. Violence and abuse 5. Health problems 6. Work challenges 7. Financial challenges 8. Isolation Unplanned or unwanted pregnancy
.....is when the pregnancy itself is a life challenge, and it's the obvious place to start because it is the commonest cause of an unhappy pregnancy or depression due to pregnancy. Did you know that 50% of pregnancies in the United Kingdom are unplanned? Some people are happy to discover that they are pregnant and some are not, but if it comes as a surprise it's stress all the same and takes time to come to terms with. It's a cliche these days to say, "there's never a right time to have a baby," but that is not strictly true. For some of us it is a devastating life challenge because it doesn't fit in with plans that we have made for our lives. This is especially true if you are younger.
If a pregnancy is unwanted it's harder to accept it and takes longer to come to terms with it; the added mental stress can destabilise your mood. Even though unplanned pregnancy is so common it still seems to be taboo to say that you aren't exactly thrilled, but saying that is the best way to start to deal with it. Talk to someone that you can trust, who will be supportive of you no-matter-what. Talk to a counsellor if possible. Say out loud that you are afraid and a bit angry (or whatever you feel). Bottling up the emotions and being terrified all by yourself is what causes you to become over-stressed and possibly depressed, not verbalising your 'negative' thoughts. Sometimes, talking to your partner about this can make things worse, especially if he is dealing with his own shock and anxiety about the pregnancy. He might find it hard to be sympathetic and helpful at this time and thus he may not be the best support for you. No partnerResearch has shown that single women who do not have the involvement of a partner as a support in pregnancy are more likely to suffer depression during pregnancy and postnatally. If this is one of your life challenges you'll know that this is due to overwhelming feelings that you have to shoulder all the stress on your own. It certainly helps to have a supportive partner when you are making decisions about baby things and also to take on some of the financial load. Being without a partner means that you will have to find a different set of support-people, Finding alternative support can help to alleviate some of the despair and loneliiness that you might be feeling and help you look forward more to having your baby.Make a list of the things that you think a partner would usually help you with and then see if you can get friends and family to support you instead. Take someone with you to your check up appointments and scans because going alone can make you feel low and lonely. Get someone to take you shopping for the things that you need for baby and the things that you need for YOU. Ask someone to be your birth partner early on in your pregnancy so that you know its sorted and you don't have to be afraid that you'll be alone (you can always change your mind later......but especially don't waste time HOPING that everything will turn out 'fairytale' with your baby's dad). Relationship issuesBeing with a partner can be as much of a life challenge as being without one if the relationship is adding to your problems. This can range from the annoying to the dangerous.You may be in a relationship but find that your PARTNER IS UNSUPPORTIVE about your pregnancy (as mine was in the beginning). A friend once said to me: "There are two types of new father. The one kind is so over the moon about the prospect of being a dad that he can hardly contain himself and would climb inside your belly to play with baby if he could. The other kind sort of 'disappears' emotionally when he hears you say you are pregnant and remains 'gone' until he's no longer afraid....and that can be when the child is well into their toddler years!" If your partner is the second type, you'll need to look for emotional support elsewhere for a while. I had a hard time with this as my expectation was that my partner should be my emotional rock. I made my own life challenge by being inflexible. It doesn't have to be that way. Read the advice on being without a partner (above).
Violence and abuseIf your life challenges extend to being the victim of violence and/or abuse then you are not only putting yourself and your unborn baby at risk of physical harm but also at risk of long term emotional harm. You may be feeling crippled by depression and feeling overwhelmingly stuck but if there is ever a time to urge yourself to get help with this it would be now. Tell a friend about what is going on. Make a commitment to yourself to look after your and your baby's safety at this time. The National Domestic Violence Hotline has a 24-hour toll free number (North America). In the UK the National Centre for Domestic Violence also operates 24/7. For help in Australia click here.
Your partner may be emotionally or sexually abusive rather than violent, which is distressing in a different but no less powerful way. Often abusive partners are not open to looking for help as they don't even realise their abusiveness or don't want to change. If you are the victim of any abuse you are at risk of developing depression from the chronic mental strain of it. These life challenges have consequences for your baby and you do need to think about protecting yourself from them. Talk to someone. Ask a friend to go with you when you see your midwife or doctor if you don't think that you will manage to talk about it on your own. You can arrange counselling for yourself, alone, to help to better mentally protect yourself against your partner's abuse.
Health problemsOne of the more difficult life challenges in pregnancy is to cope with other health problems that you may have. Your body is under a certain amount of strain from pregnancy-related processes and changes already. If you have another medical problem or a disability that you manage to cope with OK, usually, pregnancy may be a time when this may become hard to manage and it may become a mental and physical strain.This website cannot deal with all the different medical conditions that could potentially be life challenges in pregnancy, but there are many excellent pregnancy and health websites that do and I'd encourage you to look for them using the major search engines. I would merely like to focus on the potential for medical illnesses and disabilities to cause stress in pregnancy and lead to low mood.
If your medical complaint or disability starts to make you feel overwhelmed, over-irritable, miserable or that life is not worth living, consider that your life challenges might be becoming overwhelming enough to be making you depressed. In this case, talk to your medical expert about your feelings and ask for a referral to specialist psychiatry services if you would like more support. Work challengesAt least half of us who work while we are pregnant encounter some kind of 'issue' around it. I myself had to seek advice from the Maternity Alliance when I was expecting and, considering the useful info I got from the pamphlets I was given, I am truly sad to say that they have since closed. However, excellent information regarding your 'rights' as a pregnant woman (in the UK) is available on the 'babyworld' website.Employers have been known to 'bully' pregnant women, to 'demote' them, to insinuate that they are slacking off and to frown upon time taken off for maternity appointments. These kinds of life challenges at work can be stressful and can make you miserable. I found it very helpful to find out what I was entitled to and what my rights were. Not knowing made me feel miserable and afraid and contributed to my depression. Having the knowledge made me feel less powerless, less apologetic. I was also able to financially plan for my maternity leave. if you are feeling depressed and overwhelmed by too many life challenges it can be hard to know where to start looking for information. The website mentioned above is a good place to start. Or talk to your midwife or health visitor - they will usually have the information to hand and will be able to tell you how to assert your legal rights. A friend who has been pregnant before you may well have had to find this info for themselves so it is worth asking other women, too. Financial challengesSome of the most stressful life challenges that you can encounter in pregnancy are financial challenges: losing your job, being unable to work if you worked previously, losing money in business, major repairs on your house or car, family illness that cost a lot of money.......And those are the ones that you don't choose for yourself! It seems almost obligatory to move home when you are pregnant, especially for the first or second time. You might think you need to get a car or a bigger car. All the pregancy websites will bombard you with marketing for all the things that you 'must' buy for your new baby in order to be a 'good mother'. And all this at a time when you are facing a period of reduced earning capacity! Sounds like a recipe for increased stress to me.
For some the financial life challenges associated with falling pregnant seem devastating and you may feel like you will never manage to cope. Perhaps you are in debt up to your eyeballs and can only see yourself being in more debt if you have a baby. Perhaps your partner's job is precarious. If you are a fearful person the stress can become overwhelming enough to tip you into pregnancy depression.
I am not going to say that children are not 'expensive' because they are, but I am going to say a few obvious things that might help to reduce your anxiety levels. Most of the things that you think you need for your baby you don't really need. When I thought that we couldn't possibly afford to be pregnant, a friend said something to me that helped to calm me down. She said, "A baby just needs the space on its mother's lap." That's both true and not true but it helped me to put things in perspective. There are enough real life challenges to deal with without creating more by worrying that I will be a bad mother if I don't have all the latest and best of everything. The thing is that you don't always know what you need and what you don't need. If you make a list of all the things that you think you need and then show it to a sensible friend who has had a baby she will be able to help you knock more than a few things off that list! Most things can be bought second hand. People give away stuff on websites like gumtree.com or freecycle all the time. Stick to the basics because a newborn baby really does NOT need all that much. If you have very real financial life challenges like overwhelming debt or the prospect of losing your house you will need to get help. Online help is available at Debt-1's free debt help or make an appointment to see your bank manager, who is pretty much obliged to endeavour to help you. I know, I know: depression means that you feel like you cannot do any of this. This is where you need to make yourself supportable by saying out loud to someone that you trust, be it family or friend, that the life challenges of your financial situation are too overwhelming for you to cope with and could they please help you to do something to sort it out. There is never any harm in mentioning to your midwife or doctor that you have these life challenges as they might be able to make useful suggestions or to give you the name of an organization that can help. Doctors sometimes forget it but they ought to care about their patients in a holistic sense not only a medical one! Being isolated and alone
Life challenges don't get bigger than having no one to share your load with. If you have a good social support network, of friends, family and partner, you have more of a fighting chance of being happy in your pregnancy than if you are quite isolated. I felt seriously alone in my pregnancy because I had recently emigrated with my husband and hadn't yet managed to establish a network of good friends in my new home town. I felt unfamiliar with everything, from the health service to 'where to buy baby equipment', not to mention 'how to look for child care'. I didn't know anyone else who was pregnant; my lifelong friends were 10, 000 miles away. I had no family support. And to top it all my husband was having his own life challenge crisis about the fact that I was pregnant so he was a source of tension rather than support. Having an introverted personality means that I am slow to make friends and even slower to ask for help from people I don't feel that I know very well. As a result the pregnancy felt like a burden I could hardly carry and it left me feeling stressed and depressed. At the time I did not know that my midwife and GP could be a mine of information, help and support and that I should talk about these issues to them. If you feel as alone as I did, if you are far away from your family and friends, even in a strange country, my advice would be to talk about these life challenges to your health care professionals. Through the work I do now, I know that there is lots available for pregnant women who need a bit of extra support. You just have to TELL people where you're at, and don't feel ashamed because it's not just for you, it's also
for the good of your baby
if you can avoid depression by coping better with life challenges.
A useful link:
Baby Chaos
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You may fall pregnant when your relationship is very rocky and you are unhappy in marriage or UNHAPPY IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP. Constant disagreement with your partner, or unresolved relationship issues, can be very stressful and make you feel insecure. This is magnified when you are expecting a baby and your natural drives mean that you crave security and safety. Hormone changes in pregnancy may make you feel more argumentative than usual or feel like acting out in a violent way. At the same time you may be thinking that you ought to be calm for your baby so arguing and unpleasantness may leave you feeling guilty too. Many of us think that a baby will make relationship issues better but having a baby in the context of a fraught relationship will only make things worse. Research shows that the most vulnerable time for a relationship is around the time of the first baby. That's why, if your relationship issues are remotely resolvable, it's a good idea to work on them before baby arrives. Speak to your midwife or doctor about this if you would like help arranging counselling or support. There are many organisations that offer relationship counselling if you want to self-refer.
If you live in the United Kingdom a good place to start looking for relationship help is
The most important advice to give here is to make sure that your health challenge is well-managed throughout your pregnancy. If possible tell your regular physician that you are PLANNING to conceive and get their advice on how to cope early on. If you fall pregnant before you can do this, then make sure you make an appointment with your physician as soon as you know you are pregnant. There is nothing more stressful for both body and psyche than being laid low by a diabetic crisis or an asthma attack, for example, soon after you fall pregnant. And do remember that some of your medication might need to be adjusted or changed. If you have been stable for a long time and are no longer regularly seeing your physician, it's important to tell your booking midwife or obstetrician that you have a chronic condition so that they can refer you for pregnancy care.
