When we talk about pregnancy and birth, we tend to focus on this birth—the baby that’s coming, the labour that’s ahead, the choices that need to be made. But what we don’t talk about nearly enough is the birth that has already happened.

Your birth.

The way you came into the world—your own journey from womb to world—isn’t just a distant, long-forgotten event. It lives within you, shaping your subconscious beliefs, your nervous system, and your emotional responses in ways you might never have considered.

And if you work in the birth world, it’s shaping your clients too.

Your First Birth Experience Was Your Own

Before you were ever pregnant, before you ever thought about having children, your body and mind already carried a birth story.

Were you born via C-section or vaginal birth?
Was your birth traumatic for your mother?
Did you experience medical interventions?
Were you separated from your mother immediately after birth?

These experiences don’t just disappear. They imprint. They shape your nervous system, your ability to regulate stress, and—crucially—how you respond to pregnancy and birth later in life.

Why Your Birth Story Matters More Than You Think

For some, this early imprint can lead to deep-seated fears around birth and pregnancy. If your own birth was difficult, your subconscious may interpret birth as something dangerous, stressful, or even life-threatening.

Women with tokophobia (the extreme fear of pregnancy and birth) often have unresolved perinatal experiences—not just from their mother’s birth stories but from their own time in the womb and their own birth.

This isn’t just psychological. It’s biological.

The body remembers.

Studies on pre- and perinatal psychology have shown that early experiences, even in the womb, shape our nervous system development and our core beliefs about safety, control, and survival.

The Birth Industry Doesn’t Talk About This—But It Should

Birth education focuses on facts, techniques, and preparation. But if a woman has an unconscious imprint of birth as traumatic, no amount of knowledge will override her nervous system’s response.

This is why traditional birth prep often fails women with deep-rooted fears. It’s not about learning more—it’s about healing what’s already there.

What Can We Do?

For birth professionals, perinatal therapists, and healers, this is a crucial missing link in birth work. Understanding how birth imprints affect your clients can transform the way you support them.

For women, it means recognising that your fears aren’t just about this pregnancy or this birth. There’s a deeper story—one that, when healed, can change everything.

If we want to truly support women through pregnancy and birth, we need to stop focusing only on the birth ahead… and start understanding the birth that has already happened.

 

The Missing Link Between Perinatal Trauma and Pregnancy Anxiety

When we talk about perinatal trauma, most people assume we mean the trauma a mother experiences while giving birth. But there’s another kind of perinatal trauma—one that’s far less recognised but just as impactful: the trauma that happens to us when we are in the womb or being born.

And it’s shaping pregnancy anxiety in ways we’re only just beginning to understand.

Perinatal Trauma: More Than Birth Trauma

For decades, birth professionals and mental health practitioners have focused on trauma that occurs during or after birth—the difficult deliveries, the emergency interventions, the postpartum struggles.

But trauma doesn’t start at birth. It starts long before.

Many of the fears, anxieties, and emotional challenges that arise during pregnancy can be traced back to what a woman experienced in utero and during her own birth.

Think about it: Our very first experience of birth is our own.

And that experience—whether peaceful or stressful—can shape how we feel about pregnancy and birth later in life.

How Perinatal Trauma Creates Pregnancy Anxiety

A baby in the womb is constantly absorbing information. The mother’s stress, fears, and emotions don’t just disappear—they imprint on the developing nervous system of the baby.

If a baby experiences distress in the womb—perhaps due to a high-stress pregnancy, maternal anxiety, medical complications, or birth interventions—it can create subconscious imprints that later manifest as:

✅ Deep anxiety about pregnancy and birth
✅ Unexplained panic at the idea of being pregnant
✅ A strong sense of fear or resistance around motherhood
✅ A subconscious association between pregnancy and danger

This is one reason why many women with tokophobia (the extreme fear of pregnancy and birth) can’t always pinpoint a clear traumatic event in their past. The trauma might not have been “theirs” in the way we typically think about trauma—it may have been imprinted before they were even born.

Why This Matters for Birth Professionals and Mental Health Practitioners

If you work with pregnant women, anxious mothers, or clients with reproductive fears, this is a critical piece of the puzzle.

Often, when traditional approaches to pregnancy anxiety don’t work, it’s because we’re looking in the wrong place. Instead of only focusing on conscious fears and external influences, we need to address the deeper, subconscious imprints that are still shaping a woman’s experience.

When we start to explore this missing link—when we help clients process and heal their earliest experiences—it changes everything.

Anxiety fades.
Pregnancy fears lose their grip.
Women step into birth with a confidence they never thought possible.

The Future of Perinatal Mental Health

Understanding perinatal trauma before it turns into pregnancy anxiety should be a fundamental part of maternal mental health care.

As birth professionals, therapists, and mental health practitioners, we need to be asking bigger questions:

🔹 What was your own birth like?
🔹 What do you know about your mother’s pregnancy with you?
🔹 Could your fears around pregnancy be rooted in something deeper?

Because when we shift our focus from managing anxiety to healing it at the source, we can create real, lasting change.

👉 If this resonates, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you seen this in your clients? Let’s start the conversation.