Former tokophobia sufferer, mother of two fearless births, author of Betrayed By Your Biology and Fearless Birthing. Host of the Fear Free Childbirth podcast (2m+ downloads). The person who named Reproductive Anxiety Disorder.
People sometimes assume I do this work from the outside, as an expert who studied the fear. I did not. I do it because I lived it. This is my tokophobia story: where it began, the years I spent not understanding it, the shock that forced me to face it, and how I came out the other side with two calm, fearless births. I share it because somewhere in it, you might recognise yourself.
In this post:
Where my tokophobia story began
If I had to point to a beginning, it would be a grim school biology classroom, flickering lights and all. I was twelve or thirteen when they wheeled out one of those old childbirth videos: grainy, dated, a woman groaning through tinny speakers. The moment it started, my whole body revolted. My stomach clenched, my throat tightened, my palms went damp. Every part of me was screaming that what I was watching was a horror no sane person would willingly go through. And in that single moment, I made myself a quiet promise: birth was not for me. Ever.
For years I believed that video caused my fear. I was wrong. It was only the spark that lit something already quietly brewing inside me. It took me decades to understand that, partly because, despite the terror, I also knew somewhere that I wanted to be a mother. I just could not connect the two.
The quiet years of avoidance
Fast forward to my twenties and thirties. I was the friend who did not want to hold your baby. Did not want to babysit, did not want to go to the baby shower. Everyone else would coo over the newborn while I stood there smiling politely and thinking, hard pass. Even sex was not safe from it. Sometimes I would end up crying afterwards, not every time, but often enough to notice, and I could never explain why. I brushed it off as one of those things. Looking back, I know exactly what it was: tokophobia leaking out wherever it could find a gap.
On paper my life looked fine. Ambitious, busy, career-focused. Children were not even on my radar. That is how deep my avoidance ran. I had been in a long-term relationship for eight years and we had genuinely never once talked about having kids. That is not an accident. That is a fear quietly running the show.
The shock
Then, at thirty-four, everything changed in a single afternoon. I only suspected something because my breasts were sore, and because my mum had died of breast cancer, my mind went to the worst place. A doctor asked if I had taken a pregnancy test. “Why would I do that?” I actually laughed. The next day I was staring at two pink lines, and everything inside me just stopped.
There is a photo of me from that day and I look like someone who has been told her house has burned down. Pale, hollow, stunned. That picture is pure paralysis. I sat there thinking, I cannot do this, I cannot. A few weeks later, after some confusion about how far along I even was, I was told I had miscarried. And then something happened that frightened me more than anything: alongside the shock and sadness came a huge, shame-filled wave of relief. What kind of woman, I thought, feels relieved to lose a baby? I spiralled. I was grieving my mum, wrestling with anxiety and depression, and now drowning in a reaction I could not make any sense of.
The turning point
So I decided I would fix it, though I did not yet know what “it” even was. With remarkable lack of insight, I labelled it a bad bout of anxiety and went looking for help. A year later I was pregnant again, and this time the fear was still there, humming under everything, but no longer a black hole. That miscarriage had forced the conversation my partner and I had avoided for eight years, and through it I realised something important: I did want to be a mum. We both wanted children. I was simply still terrified of birth.
As far as I was concerned, there was only one acceptable route: a C-section, all the drugs, knock me out, wake me up with a baby beside me. Except that is not how it works. So I started searching. Books, hypnobirthing, meditation, breathing, affirmations. None of it touched the fear. One afternoon I opened a pregnancy book, saw a diagram of a baby moving through the birth canal, and went into instant full-body shutdown, heart racing, vision blurring. I slammed the book shut. That was the moment I realised I was going to have to deal with this myself, at a level none of the usual tools were reaching.
From terror to two fearless births
I was working as a coach at the time, already trained in several mind and body techniques. So I started turning them on my own fear, methodically, clearing it piece by piece. What I found underneath was never really about birth at all. It was control, being trapped, the unknown, my own history. As I cleared each layer, the terror that had run my life for decades began, genuinely, to lift. I write about why this root-level work succeeds where everything else failed in the root of tokophobia.
I went on to have two calm, fearless births. Not white-knuckled, not endured, but fearless, and to my own astonishment, free of the pain I had been so certain was inevitable. The woman who once promised herself in a classroom that birth was not for her had two of them, on her own terms. That is not a miracle and it is not because I am special. It is because the fear was a learned, stored thing, and stored fear can be cleared. What I had stumbled into became the method I now teach, and the foundation of everything I do.
Why I am telling you this
I share my tokophobia story for one reason: so you know it can change. If you are where I was, convinced you are broken, not maternal, the only one who feels this, please hear me. You are none of those things. I felt all of it, and I was wrong about all of it.
Your fear has roots, those roots can be healed, and you were never broken to begin with. There is no rush, and there is no single right path. But there is a way through, because I walked it, and I have since watched hundreds of other women walk it too. If you would like to see what overcoming it can look like, read can you overcome tokophobia? next.
If my story resonates
If something here felt like your own life described back to you, here is where you might go next, whenever you are ready.
- The Fearless Birthing Course (£349) – the full method I used to clear my own fear, taught step by step, for women who want to do this work themselves.
- Work with me – if you would rather have my support directly, this is where to find the ways we can work together, one to one.
- The free Tokophobia Assessment – if you just want to start by understanding your own story, begin here.
Frequently asked questions
How did Alexia Leachman overcome her tokophobia?
Alexia cleared her tokophobia by working at the root, in the nervous system, rather than through reassurance, education or willpower, which had all failed her. Already trained in mind and body techniques, she cleared the fear layer by layer, discovering it was never really about birth, and went on to have two calm, fearless births.
Did Alexia have tokophobia before having children?
Yes. Her fear began in childhood, sparked by a school childbirth video, and ran through years of quiet avoidance long before she was pregnant. This is primary tokophobia: a fear present before any reproductive experience. A shock pregnancy and miscarriage at thirty-four finally forced her to face it.
Can you really go from tokophobia to a fearless birth?
Yes. Alexia did, twice, and has supported hundreds of women to do the same. Tokophobia is a learned, stored fear, not a permanent trait, so it can be cleared. Once the fear is healed at the root, a calm, even fearless birth becomes genuinely possible, rather than something to merely survive.
Is it normal to feel relief after a miscarriage if you fear pregnancy?
It can happen, and it does not make you a bad person. For a woman with intense fear of pregnancy, relief can surface alongside grief and shock, which is deeply confusing and often shaming. It is a sign of how overwhelming the fear was, not a measure of love. It deserves compassion, not judgement.
By Alexia Leachman, creator of the RAD framework and the Fearless Birthing method. Former tokophobia sufferer, author, host of the Fear Free Childbirth podcast.
About the author: Alexia Leachman had tokophobia before most people had heard the word. She spent years quietly terrified of pregnancy and birth, cleared that fear, and went on to have two calm, fearless births. She now helps women understand and clear tokophobia at the root, and named Reproductive Anxiety Disorder to give this fear the recognition it deserves. More about Alexia →
Fearless Birthing and Head Trash Clearance are not therapy and are not a substitute for clinical mental health or medical care. If you are struggling or in crisis, please reach out to a qualified professional or your care provider.
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