Former tokophobia sufferer, mother of two fearless births, author of Betrayed By Your Biology and Fearless Birthing. The person who named Reproductive Anxiety Disorder.
I was once terrified of the pain of birth. So when I tell you I went on to have two births where I felt pressure and intensity but never pain, I am not speaking as someone who got lucky. I am speaking as someone who understood how birth actually works, and prepared accordingly.
If you ask a frightened woman what she dreads most about birth, pain is almost always near the top. And no wonder. We are told, over and over, that childbirth is the worst pain a human can endure, worse than breaking every bone in your body, like being ripped apart from the inside. Hear that enough times and a fear of pain in childbirth is the only sane response.
But here is what almost no one tells you: pain in birth is not actually inevitable. This post explains why some women suffer in labour and others feel little or no pain at all, and what that means for you.
Why a fear of pain in childbirth is not the whole story
Let me say the thing that sounds impossible first. Not every woman experiences pain in childbirth. Around one in five women report a pain-free birth. I am one of them, twice over. That is not because we have special bodies. It is because of how birth chemistry works.
During labour, three hormones are in play. Oxytocin keeps labour moving. Endorphins are your body’s own painkillers, stronger than anything made in a lab. And adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone, is the one that makes birth hurt. When you feel frightened or stressed, adrenaline surges in and pushes the oxytocin and endorphins out. Labour slows, your natural pain relief switches off, and everything starts to hurt. And the trigger for all of that? Fear.
So the fear of pain is not just an uncomfortable feeling to sit with. Fear creates tension, and tension creates pain. The very thing women are most afraid of is, in part, produced by the fear itself.
Fear, tension, pain
Watch a woman think about birth pain and you will often see her whole body respond: legs clamp shut, arms cross, breath holds, brow furrows. The body locks up. And a body that is braced and clenched is a body trying to birth a baby through tight, tense muscles. That is what turns the intense work of labour into agony.
This is why clearing the fear of pain is not only a mental exercise, it is a physical one. The fear has to be released from the body, not just talked about, so that when labour comes your body can stay soft and let the right hormones do their work.
It is intense, not necessarily painful
I am not pretending birth is easy. It is hard. It is intense. It is a marathon that asks you to dig deep when you think you have nothing left. But think about an actual marathon. Does running one hurt? It is demanding and exhausting, yes, but it does not feel like being torn apart, not if you have trained for it. Force someone to run 26 miles with no preparation, though, and it will feel like torture.
Birth is the same. Society lumps the intensity and the effort together with suffering and calls the whole thing pain. Then women go in expecting the worst, which raises their fear, which raises their adrenaline, which makes the experience exactly as painful as they feared. The horror stories are not just unkind. They are self-fulfilling.
How to ease a fear of pain in childbirth
Two things change this. First, understand how birth works, which you have just started doing. Knowing that fear, not birth itself, is what manufactures most of the pain takes a surprising amount of the terror out of it.
Second, actually clear the fear from your body before labour, rather than hoping to push through on the day. Through both my labours I used fear clearance in the moment: every “what if I cannot do this” and “what if something goes wrong” cleared as it arose, so adrenaline never got the upper hand. You can do this work in advance too. The Fear Clearance Collections include a track specifically for the fear of pain, and the full method is taught in the Fearless Birthing Course. The technique itself is Head Trash Clearance.
A fear of pain rarely travels alone. It usually sits alongside a fear of losing control, and both are part of the wider picture of fear and anxiety in pregnancy. Wherever you start, the message is the same: you have far more power over your birth experience than you have been led to believe.
Frequently asked questions
Is childbirth always painful?
No. Pain in childbirth is not guaranteed. Around one in five women report a pain-free birth. Pain is largely the result of fear and tension, which trigger adrenaline and shut down the body’s natural pain relief. Reduce the fear, and you change the physical experience of birth.
How can I get over my fear of pain in childbirth?
Understand that fear, not birth itself, creates most birth pain, then clear the fear from your body before labour rather than trying to push through on the day. Fear-clearance methods like Head Trash Clearance work directly on the fear, and you can start gently, in your own time.
Does fear actually make birth more painful?
Yes. Fear triggers adrenaline, which pushes out oxytocin and endorphins, your body’s natural pain relief, and causes muscles to tense. Fear creates tension, and tension creates pain. This is why calm, prepared women often experience far less pain than frightened ones.
Is it too late to work on my fear of pain if I am already pregnant?
No. Fear-clearance work helps at any stage of pregnancy, and even in labour itself. The earlier you start the more settled you will feel, but there is no cut-off. Begin where you are, without panic about timing.
About the author: Alexia Leachman helps pregnant women, and women planning pregnancy, clear the specific fears anxiety likes to attach to: pain, losing control, intervention, the unknown. She went from terrified to two fearless births, and wrote the practical how-to, Fearless Birthing, to show other women the way through. More about Alexia →
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