Thread: Tocophobia - Fear of Childbirth

To be quite honest, the only thing I find strange about this is why EVERY woman does not have this fear. I have quite a few female friends and they often tell me that they are feeling really broody and wish they were having a baby (Maybe it's a hint towards me, but I'm not putting any babies in the oven any time soon ) and I just can't understand why you'd want to go and put yourself through that 9 months of torture. I have to give them a reality check sometimes and be like "YOU REALISE YOU HAVE TO SQUEEZE ONE OF THOSE OUT OF YOUR LADY PARTS, RIGHT?".

That being said though, maybe some day you will change your mind on the topic. You probably think it's very unlikely at the moment, but who knows what the future may bring?

Yeah, when any guy or any female that wants insight on women who've been through dealing with childbirth, the experiences of that on their end is not something they would use as a port of call towards anyone, even with people they trust, it's generally something hard to be open about. Those are just personal, and it would take an enduring woman to openly give her personal thoughts out without having to be affected tremendously by remembering those moments, especially those who may have had to get C-sections and knew other women died giving childbirth for that matter. And combine this simple deduction with other forms of anxiety on OP's end that would seem to contradict her presumed phobia of childbirth (especially with her fantasies that would make one question if she has this phobia in the first place), that's where one has to find out if OP is shifting through phobias and anxiety more than Lady Gaga's fashion trends, or she genuinely has this phobia and can explain how her other fears and even fantasies wouldn't contradict that phobia.

But if she has other worries, phobias, anxiety disorders that clearly would contradict this particular phobia (too bad a thread to show easy proof of this is deleted since she had a naive view on something that clearly would make this phobia incompatible with her), and unless she actually portrays to me some of this empathy that women are presumed to have in terms of childbirth, to show that women really do have the best of both words in terms of empathy, I can't take OP seriously.

Well we're not shrinks, and no one here that I'm aware of has the qualifications to properly diagnose anyone's phobias. If I were qualified, I'd be making a hell of a lot more money than I do now!

Yeah, I probably give a vibe of trying to analyze too much on why people have certain phobias, but when it's something like childbirth in particular, and how people tend to say things like "you're a male and you can't possibly understand this," or "females have better empathy than any male," it doesn't even become a matter of wanting to be a doctor and trying to fix a person's phobia, it's just an endeavor of understanding and learning. There has to be a red line drawn to where none of us has the competence to properly filter out and making better theories on people having certain phobias and anxiety disorders, but even with that, for the sake of just understanding things and trying to learn from other people's experiential truth is still interesting to discuss about.

Usually when it comes to this particular phobia, people gravitate mostly towards females, but not consider the children (female or male) who may have this phobia after experiences that stack onto the overwhelming and irrational fear. Especially if the child has a mother that had several miscarriages and they were the only one to survive, and how that automatically creates pressure for the child to be the shining hope for that mother to not make the several attempts of childbirth go in vain. This is why it annoys me when males white knight their way and set an absolute assumption that males can't be empathetic or even attempt to do so, and it's doubly irritating when other women literally become instigators and want me to make threads on things I don't even agree with.

Personally, one of my half-sisters' mother died from having a C-section to give birth to her, and combined with my own family's history with miscarriages and all that, for me to become a defeatist and not trying to understand what women would go through, despite of my constraints and limits as a male, for users to constrict that opportunity to at least gain some insight from others (because they feel what I would talk about doesn't relate to this phobia in particular) I just can't really tolerate people's aims for giving up in discussion (even if I have to drag it out of them before they make closing statements of "I'll get back to you on that" and never answer).

For me as a male to deny the chance of empathizing the living hell a woman would go through when there's a failed attempt with childbirth and seeing the child dead, and several children dead for that matter, I can't help but have genuine respect for those females who endure through that hell and can still live their lives decently. As a child that was lucky to not die from the several miscarriages my own mother had in the past or my other relative's mother who died from a C-section operation, I would deduce that a child would have some authority to contribute to this thread. It's not about fixing the situation or trying to diagnose and shift people into the right path, it's just for closure honestly, and that desire for closure will keep growing until I'm dead, just like many needs and desires we go through in our lives.

Just like what OP is going through when she finally found the term of her presumed phobia. Closure.

You sure do have a purty mouth... Kiddin

Yeah I get what you're saying. This thread should be more about the discussion of the actual phobia though, and not a war of the sexes. IMHO.

This reminds me of a psychologist Stanislov Groff. He is an expert in the psychological factors of childbirth. And I just had a thought.

Perhaps the fear stems from your own experience during birth? According to Groff, the birth experience is a major factor in determining fears later in life. That initial experience of coming out of the womb of course has more impact than anything in the baby's life up until that point. After growing in a safe place for several months, it slowly becomes more and more cramped. Then we are forced down an impossibly tight tunnel of flesh to be pulled out by strangers. Then we are forced to breathe for the first time, and are additionally exposed to all the sensory perceptions for the first time.

I am saying all this only to illustrate that the experience one has in their own childbirth could probably effect their unconscious expectations of pregnancy among other things...

On a different note. My sister opted for a delivery with midwives at her home. She said the pain was minimal and even though her pregnancy was relatively hellish as is typical, she seems to feel it was worth the pain.

Personally, the thought of being responsible for a human life is absolutely terrifying. I have a hard enough time being a nanny let alone creating my own little (halfway) mini me.