I used to believe I just wasn’t “the maternal type”. That something in me was hard-wired wrong — why else would the idea of pregnancy or birth send shockwaves of fear through my body? But what if the real story started long before I was ever old enough to know the...
“I never expected a conversation about tokophobia to shatter what I thought I knew… about myself, JJ, and just how far-reaching this fear really is.” When I first met JJ Stenhouse, she was a fellow presenter on UK Health Radio, a fellow truth-teller, and — like me —...
For most of my adult life, I thought I just had shaky mental health. Constant anxiety, bouts of depression, even a good dose of OCD at times — all of it seemed to come and go without warning, sitting underneath everything I did. But no matter how “together” I looked...
I didn’t know I was living with tokophobia — until my body and mind made it impossible to ignore. If you’d asked me in my thirties whether I was afraid of pregnancy, I’d have told you I was far too busy building my career to think about babies. I wouldn’t have called...
If you’d told me years ago that fear of pregnancy would become the defining thread running through my work, my conversations, and — if I’m honest — my healing, I wouldn’t have believed you. For so long, I didn’t even know tokophobia had a name. It was just this...
“I didn’t even know tokophobia was a thing… until my whole life started making sense.” For most of my adult life, I thought there was just something wrong with me. Why didn’t I light up around babies? Why did the thought of pregnancy make me feel not just uneasy, but...
For years, I thought I was just “bad at life.” I felt anxious.Disconnected.Like something was always a bit off.And yet… I couldn’t quite explain why. I wasn’t broken. But I was barely coping. And then I saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test. What happened next felt...
When people talk about birth trauma, they’re usually referring to the trauma a mother experiences while giving birth. But there’s another kind of birth trauma that almost no one talks about — the trauma of being born. This experience — what happens to us in the womb...
If you struggle with the idea of pregnancy or birth—whether that’s full-blown tokophobia or just a deep unease—you’ve probably spent time wondering: Why do I feel this way? Maybe you’ve never had a traumatic experience related to birth.Maybe you haven’t heard any...
One of the biggest problems with tokophobia is its name. It’s got the word phobia in it. That confuses people— especially mental health professionals —because we tend to think of phobias as isolated, irrational fears that can be treated with desensitisation or...
We use cookies to ensure the smooth running of our website for our users and customers. Find out more about how we use your data here. OK. I accept.Privacy policy
