Reproductive Anxiety Disorder: The Hidden Mental Health Crisis Affecting Women at Every Stage of Life

For decades, we’ve accepted a simple (and lazy) explanation for why women experience higher rates of anxiety than men:

“It’s hormonal.”
“It’s just part of being a woman.”
“You’re emotional. You overthink.”

But even the research doesn’t fully back this up.

A widely cited study published in the International Journal of Women’s Health confirms that women are nearly twice as likely to suffer from anxiety disorders compared to men — and the gap has held steady across time.

And yet, when asked why, the researchers say:

“Hormonal fluctuations across a woman’s life may propagate anxiety disorders… but the full picture is still not fully understood.”
— McLean et al., 2017

That sentence stopped me in my tracks.

Because I believe I’ve seen the missing piece.
And I’ve seen it hundreds of times in the clients I’ve worked with.

I call it Reproductive Anxiety Disorder (RAD)

It’s a specific, deeply patterned form of anxiety that originates from the reproductive system — and expresses itself psychologically, emotionally, and behaviourally across a woman’s lifetime.

Most women I work with never had a name for what they were experiencing.
They were told they were anxious, hormonal, depressed, overwhelmed… or just broken.

But their stories shared a common thread — one I couldn’t ignore.

Let’s break it down.

Where RAD Shows Up

You don’t need to be trying for a baby to experience this. RAD can begin as early as puberty and persist well into menopause.

Puberty

  • Body shame

  • Social withdrawal

  • Disordered eating

  • Fear of being seen

Fertility & Family Planning

  • Aversion to sex

  • Fear of pregnancy

  • Fertility struggles

  • Inability to discuss family plans

  • Ambivalence about motherhood that feels like confusion — but is actually fear

Pregnancy

  • Extreme emotional shutdown or panic

  • Sudden depression after a positive test

  • Fear of losing control over your body

  • Persistent thoughts of escape

Motherhood

  • Intrusive thoughts

  • High-functioning anxiety

  • Overwhelm and hypervigilance

  • Emotional disconnection or guilt

Perimenopause & Menopause

  • Emotional spirals

  • Identity collapse

  • Chronic exhaustion

  • Resurfacing trauma

  • Brain fog

RAD is often misdiagnosed as:

  • Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

  • OCD

  • Panic disorder

  • Postnatal anxiety or depression

  • Hormonal imbalance

  • PTSD

  • “Just” perimenopause

And while those diagnoses can all be valid — they don’t explain why so many of them cluster around reproductive transitions.

Because we’re not naming the root: reproductive fear.

RAD isn’t rare — it’s just invisible.

As the creator of the Head Trash Clearance method and someone who has specialised in helping women heal tokophobia (the fear of pregnancy and childbirth), I’ve seen firsthand how powerful the results can be when we approach this through the right lens.

When we stop seeing these women as “too anxious”…
And start seeing them as emotionally overloaded from carrying a fear that no one has helped them unpack.

Why this matters — for women and professionals

If you’re a birth worker, therapist, coach, or mental health professional who supports women…

You’ve likely seen this already — even if you didn’t have the words for it.

The client who avoids sex but desperately wants to be a mother.
The woman who spirals after a positive pregnancy test.
The perimenopausal client with panic attacks she can’t explain.
The new mother who can’t sleep even when the baby does.

This isn’t “general anxiety.”
This is RAD.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

What we need next:

  • Recognition in clinical and professional spaces

  • Better language for identifying RAD experiences (e.g. “The Split” — that moment a woman shuts down when faced with pregnancy)

  • Training for professionals across birth, mental health, and menopause

  • Compassionate, fast-acting methods for healing the root fear

This is what I do. And this is the conversation we’re starting now.

If this resonates — whether you’re a professional or someone living through this — I want you to know:

You’re not alone.
You’re not broken.
You’ve just been carrying a form of anxiety no one taught you to name.

But we’re naming it now.
And that’s the beginning of healing.


Alexia

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