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Pregnancy-related anxiety is a distinct anxiety contextualized by pregnancy specific fears, worries, and concerns. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Pregnancy-related anxiety is characterized by increased concerns or excessive fears and worries about their unborn baby, childbirth , body image , and impending motherhood.
Antenatal depression, also known as prenatal or perinatal depression, is a form of clinical depression that can affect a woman during pregnancy, and can be a precursor to postpartum depression if not properly treated. [1] [2] It is estimated that 7% to 20% of pregnant women are affected by this condition. [3]
Tokophobia is a significant fear of childbirth. [1] It is a common reason why some women request an elective cesarean section. [3] Factors often include a fear of pain, death, unexpected problems, injury to the baby, sexual problems and a lack of self-belief of the capacity to birth a child. [4]
Estradiol levels increase during pregnancy, then drastically decrease following childbirth. When estradiol levels drop postpartum, the levels of serotonin decline as well. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood. Low serotonin levels cause feelings of depression and anxiety.
An anxiety threshold is the level of anxiety that, when reached, can affect a person's performance. Anxiety is an emotion, similar to fear, that can be created by insecurities in one's abilities, concerns for the future, such as financial or situational circumstances, or past memories of frightening experiences.
Generalized anxiety disorder is "characterized by chronic excessive worry accompanied by three or more of the following symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, concentration problems, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance". [13] Generalized anxiety disorder is the most common anxiety disorder to affect older adults. [14]
The Pearl Index, also called the Pearl rate, is the most common technique used in clinical trials for reporting the effectiveness of a birth control method. It is a very approximate measure of the number of unintended pregnancies in 100 woman-years of exposure that is simple to calculate, but has a number of methodological deficiencies.
Recurrent miscarriage or recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is the spontaneous loss of 2-3 pregnancies that is estimated to affect up to 5% of women. The exact number of pregnancy losses and gestational weeks used to define RPL differs among medical societies. [ 1 ]