The decision to become a mother stages the most unpredictable future ever. Let’s try to understand how it can prevent anxiety from compromising the quality of life of the future mother and family
Today, unlike what happened until a few decades ago (the birth control pill became legal in Italy in 1971!), become a mother It is almost always a choice. And like any choice is preceded by reflections, assessments, comparisons between advantages and disadvantages of something that will happen, if it happens, in the future. This is how we make all the decisions: with a “journey” in the future that inevitably includes uncertainty.
There decision to become a mother It stages the most unpredictable future ever. A future in which the woman’s body is involved, which will no longer be what it is when motherhood is just a project: will changewill be crossed by unknown sensations, will experience the intimate and profound sharing of a life within itself, will face theCommitment of childbirthand then the contact with the newborn, with his fragility and his total dependence on the mother’s care. All this can produce unknown emotions in the past, or in any case never experienced with that same intensity, including fear and theanxiety to become a mother.
Face anxieties and fears of becoming a mother
What does it try to become a mother? One of the emotions is certainly theanxietyor in any case that state of concern that a psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott, has defined as “primary maternal concern”: the sharp attention, until it becomes almost suffering, to the signals of one’s body and those of its “content”, attention that will move Then, after childbirth, on Signals sent by the Piccoloand which has its own function: Activate the care relationshipindispensable to the survival of the child.
This is to say that doubts, the insecurities, The fears of future mothers make senseand liquidate them in a hasty way (“they are only excessive anxieties …”) is simplistic and not very useful.
Of course, there are also future mothers less anxiousor in any case not entirely anxious, but also for them there is, nice and ready, a negative connotation: unconscious, superficial, disasters …
Instead, let’s try to see how to avoid anxiety compromises the quality of life of the future mother and his family. For example, can getting more to help in facing anxieties and fears of becoming a mother?
Information and infodemia
The word infodemia entered the common language in the Covid-19 pandemic period. It indicates the dissemination of an excessive amount of information, not always reliable, which make it difficult to orient themselves on a certain topic. The Attempt to reduce anxiety looking for information Through all the channels that are available today it can lead to accumulating too many, and and can no longer distinguish those that can be considered reliable.
The readers and readers of this article have chosen this source of information – Uppa – for different reasons, but certainly one is the transparency: the information comes from recognizable people, who sign them and whose professional competence is easily verifiable. But there are other information channels that do not have these characteristics, and spread indications, advice, opinions on delicate themes like this.
When the behaviors to be kept are so important not only for the health of the child but also for the emotional well -being of the mother, it is important defend themselves from the temptation to wander among blogs, social groups, influencers… A few orientation line?
- A testimony is not an opinion to rely on. Everything that begins with “It happened to me that …” is not an information to be based on making decisions about, and it is not used to reduce anxiety, on the contrary: we will certainly find a “it happened to me in another blog … »Different or opposite, which will push us to look for again and again, with growing anxiety.
- Contact a real, competent personwhich knows your history of health and motherhood: the gynecologist, the midwife, your general practitioner. Questions, doubts, the anxieties must be faced with them.
- Try to reduce the temptation to look for information on everything: How to eat, how much to sleep, do or do not have sex, do or do not play sports, possible risks present and future for the mother and for the child. Remember that that temptation arises from the impossible attempt to keep the complexity and uncertainty under control, which are an inescapable component of life and, in particular, of parenting.
The medicalization of motherhood
Another element of anxiety born in recent times is the belief that it is possible to reduce uncertainty, and above all future risks, with a massive intervention of medicine: exams and controls, increasingly in -depth investigations to the slightest suspicion detected by the exams. It is a vicious circle, the more exams they make more increases the probability that something emerges that is a little out of the normal parameters, and then it is better to deepen, it is better to do other exams … I’m not saying to go to the opposite extreme, to the “let us do to nature “. But one greater trust in the normality of the pregnancy eventin the wonderful ability of the female body to perform that task at the best, it should be recovered.
The advice, also in this case, is contact a professional capable of limiting controlsexams, investigations to the indispensable strait, to share with you the decision on what and how much to do, and also to welcome your anxietiesyour concerns without ridiculating them, but also without trying to reduce them with investigations and exams that would end up never enough.
A protective factor: the couple relationship
Maternity is an experience that is completed and enriched in the couple relationship. The participation of the partner or partner of the future mother in the birth path is essential to face the inevitable anxieties of the woman, but also to build the relationship with the “Diade” immediately mother-bambinowhich will perish, as a diade, still for some time after birth.
If we talk about dads, that participationtoday much more usual than the past, it must be encouraged and enhanced. There is a temptation to create an all -female “bubble” (future grandmothers, sisters, friends), in which experiences and advice, memories and recommendations of “Chi knows” are circulating. But The gaze of the dadswho has been called “lateral gaze”, alongside the mother, even if he cannot fully live his own experience, he proves to be of great importance in all the motherhood experience of the woman, and is the premise for one active and shared parenting.
Cultivating the quality of the couple relationship also means sharing with your partner or partner Anxieties, doubts and moments of crisis. Perhaps it is the first time that happens, perhaps until then, mainly enthusiasm and projects, happiness and passion have been shared. Parenting is a turning point, which matters the couple relationship if you allow your partner to Learn to stay next to the future mom When worried, frightened, full of uncertainties. Even if he tries the same uncertainties, the same concerns.
It will happen again, in all life as parents, to be. Better Learn immediately to talk to each other, to shareto find a way to support each other. The journey began, and it is a journey that is made in two, together with the child who is coming on board. A little anxiety is understandable.
And the single mother, by choice or by life situation? The advice is to choose the proximity of people solidly trusted. Not too many. There is the risk of being overwhelmed by help offers, advice, indications for good, which can disorient in that so intimate momentso personal that it is motherhood.
In short, the time of motherhood must be a time of hot and calm relationships. A sort of emotional incubator that also welcomes anxiety, without denying it.
