Updated November 2025
If you are scared of giving birth, you are not alone. It’s normal to be nervous about having a baby, and it can also be normal to have deeper fears surrounding the actual labor, birth or other parts of the process.
I will never forget the day I saw those two pink lines show up on my pregnancy test. It was a few days before my scheduled period, and I just had a feeling that I could be pregnant. I was excited to test and the three minute wait felt like forever.
As I looked at those lines, I was overcome with excitement and fear at the same time. It was the strangest feeling, one I couldn’t shake for a few days.
Once I processed that I was pregnant again, my mind started racing. Who should I deliver with? Who will support me with a VBA2C? Should I plan on a hospital birth or go for a HBAC (home birth after cesarean)?
You name it, the questions were there. I was nervous about giving birth.
In this article, I want to let you know you are not alone if you are scared or even terrified of giving birth. I also want to go through the ways I worked through that fear and the steps I took to find the perfect team for my birth, which ultimately gave me more peace. Most importantly, I want to leave you with resources to help you manage your fears and prepare for a confident, supported birth experience.
What are your fears around childbirth?
This is a question that I asked myself often. What was I scared of?
Step one of working through any fear surrounding giving birth is to determine what you are scared of. For example, in the beginning of my pregnancy, I had so much fear surrounding what questions others would ask me like…
- Wouldn’t a repeat C-section be safer than a VBAC?
- Aren’t you afraid of your uterus rupturing?
- What if something bad happens? Will you ever forgive yourself?
- Are you scared of dying during childbirth? Followed with, “I would be scared of dying if I were you.”
- If something happens to you or baby, will your husband forgive you?
I was getting questions like these from every angle. They were playing on a constant loop in my head, and I was getting scared.
But why was I letting these things get to me? I had done research, and I was still doing research. I knew the facts about VBAC.
I knew that those questions were nonsense, but they sure didn’t feel like nonsense. They felt real, and they felt scary. It started getting to the point where I thought maybe I should just have a repeat C-section.
One day, I decided to sit down and really figure out what about this birth was causing my fear. Crazy enough, I actually found that it wasn’t anything like the questions that were racing through my mind. I just asked myself those questions because they were being asked of me.
When I took the time to look more deeply at my fears, they looked more like this:
- If I have a repeat C-section will everyone think I am a failure?
- What will my future VBAC doula clients think if I can’t even have my own VBAC?
- Will I find the support that I need? I didn’t want to feel pressured into a repeat C-section. I knew I would need a supportive VBAC provider.
- Will my husband go for a home birth? Can we afford a home birth?
- If I reach 3 cm again and don’t progress, how can I allow myself to let go and give my body time?
I realized that it wasn’t as much my ability to give birth, it was all of the things surrounding it that were scaring me.
That was my experience and the work I did to unpack, but everyone is different. For some, this may resonate. For others, it could be totally different.
So, take a minute to really break it down… what fears do you have surrounding birth?
Here are some tips that my help you dive deeper:
- Make time to be alone with your thoughts
- Find a place you feel most comfortable and able to think (a quiet room, your favorite park bench, a coffee shop you love)
- Turn on some music or let the silence wash over you
- Journal all of your thoughts and feelings surrounding your upcoming pregnancy, birth & postpartum experience
Working through your fears of giving birth
Once you have figured out what your fears are, the next step is to start processing these fears. There are many ways to process fears, but one of my favorites is the VBAC without fear video that Julie created.
The exercise in the video is something I have personally done. I’ve also recommended it to many of my doula clients, who found it very helpful.
The video explains the process of writing your fears on paper and then physically burning them. There is a dopamine release in seeing your fears burn, which then helps the brain come to a more conscious awareness of that fear.
I remember doing this fear release activity with a client while she was in labor. Her labor went from random contractions that were not super effective or strong to stronger contractions that brought on cervical change with each fear she burnt.
Sometimes working through this activity may not completely “fix” or diminish your fears, and that is okay. Every step you take helps you process and see the next step more clearly.
Here are some additional tips to help with fear processing:
- Create a vision for how you want your experience to feel, include the tangible feelings in the room and your body
- Narrow down and write one specific statement about what’s truly most important in your experience
- If you’re struggling to sort through your thoughts & feelings, consider talking with your birth partner, doula or a counselor first.
Resources to help if you’re scared of childbirth
There are many resources available to help us overcome fears that we may have surrounding childbirth. When it comes to VBAC, we tend to not only have fears surrounding the birth itself, but all the what ifs and doubts from previous births and people around us.
As a VBAC parent myself, I understand that using all of these resources is valuable and worthwhile. We have found resources that helped not only ourselves, but also our doula clients, family, friends and community members.
Professional therapy or counseling
Therapy is something that I would strongly suggest to anyone working through a previous birth trauma, whether it ended in a C-section or not.
Working with a professional can help prepare your mind by working through past experiences, current fears, and even help process some of the unknowns. We love Better Help. They are an online counselor service that is easy to access and great to have, especially when you are busy with all the fun things in life.
If you have been diagnosed with tokophobia (a significant fear of childbirth), a professional service is suggested.
Find a good support group
Having a close support group that you can talk with when you are feeling scared or overwhelmed can be a great help.
When I was preparing for my VBA2C, there were many days that I called my doulas or my cousin, who was the best support person ever. She was always there to listen to me when I was struggling or feeling fear.
If you don’t know where to start for support, join our Facebook communities to connect with like-minded moms — VBAC Link Community, CBAC Support Community. You might also find a local support group through ICAN, the International Cesarean Awareness Netwwork.
Hire a doula
Having a doula at my birth with my son was a game changer. I was still working through some fear I had surrounding failure to progress from previous births. My labor was long and involved a lot of waiting and work. My baby was posterior, causing a lot of back labor. I required a lot of physical support on top of the extra emotional support.
It was so reassuring to have a doula I could text in the early stages of labor and to have their support all the way through. My husband also felt better able to support and help me during labor, because he felt so much love and support from our doulas.
When I was in labor with my second child, without a doula, my husband felt like a fly on the wall. He didn’t know what to do, so he fell asleep. After the birth, he said “WOW, I would never do that without a doula.”
If your partner is unsure about hiring a doula, give this awesome podcast episode a listen where dads tell you what they think you should know. My husband would describe doulas as awesome and invaluable! Doulas also help lower the chances of Cesarean and unnecessary interventions and bring so much comfort to the birthing space. Find more info and statistics on doula support here.
Take childbirth classes
Education is so important and can be such a great way to help work through fears. If you want to learn more about childbirth, hypnobirthing is an education course that covers great ways to cope through fear and childbirth. Find an online childbirth class to fit your needs and schedule.
If you are planning a VBAC, we have created an incredible self-paced online VBAC preparation course that will help you work through fears and anxiety surrounding your VBAC. This course will help educate you and your partner in all areas of VBAC and give you the confidence to move forward in planning the birth YOU desire.
If you have a birth coach or doula, we have also created a birth professional VBAC course with them so you both can be on the same page and work through the activity sheets and fear release activity together.
Listen to other birth stories
Fear is a real thing and sometimes hearing other people share their own fears, like the people on The VBAC Link Podcast, can help you work through your own fears.
If you have had a previous birth experience that left you feeling scared, or even traumatized we also highly recommend the incredible book How to heal a bad birth (available on Amazon). You can find more books we love here.
For a better birth, start working through your fears today
During labor with my third baby, I felt that I still had some fears to work through. With that said, I truly believe that I was in a much better place entering my labor than I had been with previous births. I was able to manage the fears I had during labor because of all the work I had done leading up to the birth.
It is common for us as humans to put things off and not want to face unpleasant or difficult emotions like fear. You may not want to work through your fears until you have to, or you may try hard to avoid dealing with them. It’s very normal to hear VBAC-hopeful moms say they don’t want to talk about anything related to their previous births or discuss the possibility of another C-section because then it might make it happen again.
We believe and know that it’s actually the opposite — the more you work through fears, educate yourself and make plans based on informed choices, the more prepared and confident you’ll feel. Those are the parents who come out of birth feeling like they owned their experience.
I encourage you to try your hardest to find a place of comfort by working through your fears and anxieties surrounding childbirth and your VBAC. It’s worth it to get the support you need to feel strong, capable, and confident going into your birth.
If you are reading this blog right now and you have some fears surrounding childbirth, I challenge you to take that next step. Start working on processing your fears surrounding childbirth, learning, and getting support.
You don’t have to go into labor being scared of giving birth. Go into birth feeling strong and confident in your ability to birth your baby. We are with you and believe in you.
If you haven’t had a chance to join our VBAC Link community on Facebook, be sure to head over and find an instant support group waiting for you. The people in this community are so incredibly supportive and are going through so many of the things you are going through. Also be sure to join us on Instagram. We post daily and love to answer your questions.
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