Types of treatment of anxiety during pregnancy

There are safe and effective treatments available for anxiety duruing pregnancy.  While the treatment of anxiety can vary, seeking help early gives you the greatest chance of a faster recovery.

If your anxiety is mild, you may experience a few symptoms and, while affecting your quality of life and ability to get things done, you are still likely to be able to function generally. If this is the case, emotional and practical support together with support counselling and/or psychological treatments can be very effective.

Support Counselling

This can be provided individually or in groups, providing you with an opportunity to talk through how you are feeling and thinking with someone who can support and listen in a non-judgemental way.  Support counselling can also help you to develop strategies to help deal with challenges that may be contributing to your feelings of anxiety generally, or in specific situations like when the baby is unsettled, situations at work, or social interactions.

Psychological Treatments

There are two types of psychological treatments that can be effective for treating mild to moderate anxiety:

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)

This is a structured treatment, which targets your way of thinking (cognition) and acting (behaviour), which in turn can impact on the way you feel – in this case by reducing your feelings of fear and anxiety.

It is common for people with anxiety to view things in a catastrophic way, leading them to believe that the worst will happen, or perceive things to be worse than they really are. The aim of the cognitive component of this therapy is to identify these thinking styles and help you to rationalise your thinking and begin to look at things more objectively.  Once these thinking patterns are recognised, you can begin to consciously and deliberately challenge and replace these thoughts to reduce anxiety and give you greater control over the symptoms.

As anxiety can also make you feel strong feelings of fear and anxiousness and/or panic, CBT can also teach you strategies to reduce the intensity of these physical feelings and bring these physical symptoms under control through a range of strategies including deep breathing and muscle relaxation to reduce the feelings of tension. As anxiety also can cause people to avoid situations that cause them distress, by using the above cognitive and behavioural techniques, CBT can give you the tools to help you approach situations that you may have been avoiding.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)

Anxiety may be associated with past losses and/or changes. As such, this type of therapy can assist you to resolve these losses, changes or manage conflicts which may be contributing to your experience of anxiety.

If your anxiety is more severe, however, and you are finding it difficult to get through the day and even small things seem too hard, it might be time to consider medical treatment for your anxiety.

Medical Treatments

If your anxiety is moderate to severe, there are safe and effective medications that can be used to help bring the often-overwhelming symptoms of anxiety under control.

Although commonly associated with the treatment of depression, antidepressant medications can be very helpful in the treatment of anxiety disorders.  In particular there are two types of antidepressants that are recommended – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs).

If you are prescribed one of these medications, it can take up to three weeks to have an effect, and you may experience some side-effects.  This is a good discussion to have with your health professional in relation to the medication being prescribed.

Whilst the thought of taking medication may seem unnecessary, it’s important to weigh up the pros and cons of medication for you.  Taking medication can help give you the resources to get on top of anxiety. Sometimes medication is important to take to manage the symptoms, so that you can benefit from other psychological and/or supportive therapies.

You can also download the COPE Antenatal Anxiety Fact Sheet:

Renee and Stevie talk about living with anxiety and depression

Friends Renee and Stevie discussed living with anxiety and depression during and after pregnancy in our YouTube and podcast series The Mum Drum: