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It's the reason I don't have any children. It nearly killed my marriage, and it definitely killed a serious and loving relationship I had years ago with the man I thought I would marry. It's real and tokophobia isn't something that's easy to treat. Apparently, some women become suicidal over it. I wanted to have a child but there is no way I can deal with the fear so I won't be having any. It took a long time to explain that to my husband. He finally got it but I know he's not happy about it. I gave him the option to leave or ask me to leave but he didn't and we seem to be moving forward. Still, it's a much more common problem than you may imagine.

I'm sure there's nothing anyone can say that will make you not scared, but I can try. I don't know the statistics, but the chances of something really bad happening to you during childbirth are really low. Is that your fear? Or is pain your fear? Because lots of women are scared of the pain, including myself. This is my fourth pregnancy -- my first ended at 22 weeks because my baby had a fatal birth defect, and the second at 14 weeks for the same defect. My third is now a 3-year-old boy. I guess I'm telling you this because after I had my first baby, I was deathly afraid of giving birth to another stillborn baby. I didn't know if I could handle it. But I did, and then I went on to have a healthy child (and another one on the way in 5 weeks or so!). The truth is, I would've gone through what I went through 50 times to have one healthy child. With all of the medical advances we have, childbirth for us is a lot safer than that of our ancestors. You probably should tell your doctor that you have a real phobia about this, and if he or she is any kind of decent doctor, they should be able to help you through it. Good luck with everything! Every time you feel a freak out coming on, maybe you should come on the forum for comfort.

I guess the main question is What is your fear? Are you scared of the pain? something going wrong? I think to use the term tokophobia would be if it were a extreme fear, like you are seriously deathly afraid to give birth. Don't take me the wrong way, I'm not trying to down play this at all.... But every woman has some fear of giving birth. Whether its about the pain, something going wrong, not being a good mother...whatever the case may be. I was scared when I had my son because its something new and you really don't know what to expect....This is my second pregnancy and I'm scared again because every pregnancy is different and I still don't know what to expect. You just have to take it day by day and don't freak out about it and don't ponder on it every second of the say.. If this is a serious "phobia" problem, then I would suggest going to see a counselor before you deliver your child, maybe they can help you find some ways to cope. If you are just scared because it is something new and you don't know what to expect, thats normal and every woman feels that way about child birth.

TonysWife, have you considered a surogate or is that out of your price range?

Okay so I had my beautiful baby boy Noah November 21st and I don't know what I was so afraid of. Yes, it hurt and yes, I did give birth naturally, but I would do it again and will do it again in a few more years. So girlies on here that are scared, please don't be, because once it's over you forget everything!

Hi--I just don't do well with pain. I don't see anything in pain that is admirable. I don't believe for 1 second that there is such a thing as pain with a purpose, and I won't buy that BS for a minute. That's BS to get reluctant women to have a natural child birth--I've heard the crunchy song and dance many times before, trust me! There has never been a childbirth that I know of that I would want to experience. I just can't abide it--I find it amazingly gross. I could never get my head around the idea of voluntarily damaging my body--and yes, it is damaging, even if only through temporary perineal stretching. I don't want unnecessary abdominal surgery, either, so a scheduled csection is not an option. Surrogacy would have been an option, I certainly had the money, but now I am over 45 and it's just too late. I am not in a personal position to re-do my life now to care for a child. 10 years ago, maybe, but I didn't have my partner at that point in time and I would never have a child as a single parent intentionally--just my personal values for me, no judgement of anybody else here. I would never subject my body to a pregnancy. I don't do pain, period. It's sad, but I gradually got used to it and my partner seems to have slowly overcome his problem with it. He has children with his first wife and they keep him busy. I thought he would leave for awhile and I was ready to accept it, because I would no more tolerate him imposing the requirement that I have a child anymore than I would demand he stay with me if I didn't. But tokophobia is not a fear that all women overcome. About half never have a child, even with counseling. Many of the others arrange a csection before even becoming pregnant, and it seems to work very well for them, especially those who have general anesthesia. I don't know how the fear manifested in my life, but it's difficult to be motivated to overcome it when the outcome is going through pregnancy/birth/csection or whatever. I accepted the result of that phobia, but there were nasty problems when I was younger, irate family, relationships, etc., so I feel for women who are going through it.

I think it is great that you know what you want, and that your partner has determined being with you is more important than having more children. I must, however, take exception to the idea that c-sections are a way of avoiding the pain of childbirth. I had both types of delivery and far and away the c-section was way more painful than the v____al birth. I would do a v-birth 10 times over a c-section. My female parts are just as good as before I got pregnant even after a v-birth, I never got a stretch mark, my b___bs are still high and firm and I look just like my high-school pictures of dance team. Not everyone has permanent changes to their bodies with pregnancy. But as you said, it is your decision and you are happy with it. I am glad for all ladies who decide what is best for them, and really glad mandee25 had such a positive turn-about with her fears.

I apologize. I did not clarify my statement. As I understand it--and I am no expert--the women who chose sections for tokophobia seemed to have a better response because it was the psychology of birth that offended them rather than pain. I did not represent that properly. Apologies.

TonysWife, i am curious why you come to this forum. You've already decided not to have a child so why bother coming here. I would understand it if you were trying to work through it...but why come and read about something that you find so "amazingly gross". Oh and btw, i had natural birth. I didn't do it to be a martyr. I did it because after all the research that I did, I concluded that it makes labor easier not harder. And I came away from that experience having great memories. It also seems like this is beyond fear of birth. I don't think that you want the responsibility of having a child.

I've made a few contacts who are going through the same things I went through in trying to make a decision about having children, and it was noted by one of these individuals that someone responded to one of my previous posts. As such, I was informed, and I simply came to read the post. I returned today to follow up, as that's just my nature. I chose to respond, that's all. And no, it is not the responsiblity of taking care of children that bothers me. I have tokophobia. If I wanted a child, I could more than manage to take care of it, and I would have excellent support from my family, husband, etc., as well. I have both the education and the resources to do so. I just have tokophobia. It has been my experience that people sometimes have a difficult time understanding that, because the concept of tokophobia is very hard to comprehend for some folks. I think it would be easier to understand that I have another reason for my refusal to have a child, since tokophobia as a diagnosis is both relatively new and quite foreign to many people. But that's what it is. Apologies if I have misrepresented my situation--it was not intentional.

Tony'swife, as I recall you stated you are now in your 40's, so since the point could physically be moot for you personally, what advice do you have for others who are more ambivalent about their tokophobia? I am entering the nursing field upon graduation this Summer and this is an area of intense interest to me. Is there no known therapy for women who wish to have biological children, but just cant' get past the pregnancy/labor/birth part?

Glad you asked. I've done some research into this topic. Google "Kristina Hofberg". She did some excellent research in 2000 or 2001. If you google "tokophobia" you'll be led to a study of women who participated in a counseling program. The women who finished the program did well--I think it was about 70% success rate. But, there was a huge number of women who dropped out of the study, which was noted by the researchers as a negative. The problem seems to be getting pregnant women who are tokophobic to stay in counseling rather than having elective csections, and of course, preventing women from having abortions rather than going through pregnancy in the first place. No one has been able to estimate the % of women who either permanently avoid pregnancy or have abortions. Unfortunately, for the very bad cases, suicide has resulted. I recommend reading the articles and studies on the web. Very interesting.