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 cognitive reframing.
But tokophobia isn’t like that.
Yes, it’s described as an extreme or pathological fear of pregnancy and birth. But if you actually work with women who have it (as I have for over a decade), you quickly realise something:
👉 The fear isn’t really about pregnancy and birth.
Pregnancy and birth are just the triggers — the events that force women to confront deeper, pre-existing fears, conflicts, and anxieties that have been hiding beneath the surface.
What’s Really Going On with Tokophobia?
Tokophobia is actually about:
🔹 The fear of losing control
🔹 The fear of being trapped or stuck
🔹 The fear of responsibility (parenthood, making irreversible choices)
🔹 The fear of pain and suffering
🔹 The fear of medical environments and interventions
🔹 The fear of the unknown, unpredictability, and uncertainty
These are not “pregnancy fears.”
These are core human anxieties that many people — men and women alike — carry.
The difference is, women are biologically forced to confront them head-on when faced with pregnancy and birth.
Why the Name “Tokophobia” Is Misleading
If you tell a mental health professional that someone has a phobia, they will treat it like a phobia.
That means they’ll think about:
✅ Exposure therapy
✅ Cognitive reframing (CBT)
✅ Education-based interventions
And here’s the problem…
🚫 None of these work for tokophobia.
You can’t “expose” someone to pregnancy.
You can’t just “reframe” childbirth with education.
And you certainly can’t force someone to desensitise themselves through exposure therapy (which is borderline unethical in this context).
Tokophobia behaves much more like an anxiety disorder than a phobia.
And that’s why the standard approaches don’t work.
Tokophobia Is the Apex Anxiety Disorder
We’ve been treating this all wrong.
🔹 We need to start seeing tokophobia for what it really is — the apex anxiety disorder.
🔹 We need to stop treating it like a niche issue that belongs in the pregnancy & birth space.
🔹 We need mental health professionals to recognise that this is a major, unaddressed anxiety disorder that affects millions of women — whether they want children or not.
Here’s why I say this:
If you heal tokophobia, other anxiety disorders often disappear alongside it.
I’ve worked with women who had tokophobia, OCD, and generalised anxiety — and within weeks of clearing their tokophobia, the others faded too.
But the reverse doesn’t happen.
You can clear someone’s OCD, generalised anxiety, or panic attacks — and they’ll still have tokophobia.
That tells us something important:
👉 Tokophobia is the anxiety disorder that all the others hang off of.
👉 Tokophobia is the mother of all anxiety disorders.
And yet, no one is talking about it.
It’s time to change that.
Mental Health Professionals: This Is Your Wake-Up Call
If you work with women, you need to understand tokophobia — because chances are, you’ve seen it in your clients without realising.
Join my free masterclass on tokophobia to learn:
✅ What tokophobia really is (beyond the misleading name)
✅ Why traditional therapy approaches often fail
✅ The most effective ways to help women heal
🔗 Sign up for the Tokophobia Masterclass here
Let’s start treating tokophobia for what it truly is—and stop letting women suffer in silence.
Alexia supports families planning pregnancy and birth. She helps them to overcome their fears and feel calm and confident about birth and pregnancy.
Alexia also trains birth professionals in the Fearless Birthing, a unique approach to birth preparation that is ideal for those who have fears around birth.
- In-Utero & Birth Imprint Trauma: The Hidden Factor Shaping Pregnancy Anxiety, Birth Fears, and Beyond - 14th February 2025
- Could Your Own Birth Be Shaping Your Fears About Pregnancy and Birth? - 12th February 2025
- We’ve Got Tokophobia All Wrong – And It’s Hurting Women - 12th February 2025
