If you're pregnant again after a difficult or traumatic experience, worrying thoughts are probably never far away. You might find yourself overthinking, second-guessing, or imagining worst-case scenarios about your pregnancy or birth.

These thoughts make complete sense. And there are gentle, evidence-based ways to manage them that can help you feel calmer, more in control, and a little more at ease as you prepare.

Why You Worry

Worry is a natural response to fear and uncertainty. When you've been through something frightening before, a traumatic or complicated birth, a loss, an experience where you felt out of control, your brain and body become more alert to possible danger. That's not a flaw. That's your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The problem is that worry, whilst it feels like something useful, like you're staying prepared, staying ahead of it, doesn't actually reduce the fear. In most cases it changes nothing, but leaves you feeling tense, exhausted, and emotionally wrung out.

Worry is your brain's attempt to stay in control. To plan ahead. To make sure nothing bad happens again. You don't need to fight that instinct. You just need to learn how to work with it differently.

The Two Types of Worry

One of the most helpful things you can do is learn to tell the difference between two kinds of worry, and respond to each one in a different way.

Practical worries

These are real, solvable concerns.

"I still haven't packed my hospital bag." "I haven't spoken to my midwife about my birth preferences yet."

These have answers. What helps here is turning the worry into a small, concrete action:

• What exactly needs doing?

• When will I do it?

• What support might I need?

Once your brain knows a plan exists, it can usually settle. It's not being dismissed, it's being heard.

Hypothetical worries

These are the what-ifs. The ones that spiral.

"What if something goes wrong again?" "What if I panic during labour?"

These can't be solved, because they're not problems yet, they're fears. And your mind will keep looping around them searching for a certainty that doesn't exist.

What helps here isn't solving them. It's acknowledging them without letting them take over. You might try:

• Writing them down in a journal or on a dedicated worry list

• Setting aside a short, defined "worry time" each day, giving your mind space to think, then gently moving on. You're not ignoring the thoughts, just containing them

• A worry-release meditation, imagining your thoughts drifting away on clouds or leaves in a stream

The goal is to reassure your brain that its concerns have been heard, without giving worry the whole day.

Why Letting Go Can Feel Scary

It can feel uncomfortable to stop worrying. You might fear that if you relax your guard, you'll be caught off-guard, that not worrying somehow makes bad things more likely. It doesn't.

Worry is simply your brain doing what it was built to do: keep you safe. But it needs to learn that you don't need to be on high alert all the time. That most of what it's responding to is a perceived threat, not a real one. That it's safe to rest.

Managing worry doesn't mean ignoring your feelings. It means gently teaching your nervous system that it doesn't have to work quite so hard.

Fact-Checking Your Thoughts

Another technique that can help is fact-checking, gently questioning the thought rather than accepting it as truth.

When a worrying thought arrives, try asking yourself:

• What actual evidence supports this thought?

• What evidence goes against it?

• Is there another way to see this situation?

Writing down your answers can help bring your thinking back into balance, moving from anxious what-ifs toward something more grounded and realistic. And if worry is really spiralling, having someone you trust work through this with you can make a real difference.

A Gentle Reminder

If you've been through a difficult or traumatic birth, it makes complete sense that your mind is working hard to protect you this time. You're not weak. You're not overreacting. You're responding in a very human way to something that once felt unsafe.

These strategies won't make the fear disappear overnight. But they can help quiet the noise, and help you approach this pregnancy with a little more calm, a little more trust, and a little more breathing room.

Would you like some support?

If this resonates, I specialise in supporting people who are pregnant again after a difficult or traumatic birth. Through a blend of techniques, I can help you rebuild trust in your body, your care team, and yourself, so you feel calm, informed, and supported every step of the way.

Sign up for regular emails with practical tools to support you through your pregnancy, gentle, honest, and written for exactly where you are.

With compassion,

Katie

Mental Health Midwife | Perinatal Trauma Specialist