Great to see so much interest in the topic today! Please feel free to post questions, comments and perspectives in the Chat Box. We will open for discussion after the presentation.

Is there any relationship between FOC and preterm or overdue births?

Are there any studies on fear of childbirth potentially contributing to complications in pregnancy or higher risk of miscarriage?

Do you think fear may have some protective benefits compared to any risks it may pose? Or pathways of risk it may contribute to?

Emily — pregnancy-related anxiety has been demonstrated is several studies to be related to adverse birth outcomes (preterm and low birth weight), lots of work by Chris Dunkel Schetter in this area

But fear of childbirth -> miscarriage risk is an interesting question (I haven’t seen evidence there) seems like it would be unlikely from evolutionary POV b/c fear of childbirth is thought to be adaptive to encourage seeking out birth attendants… would be counter-productive if that adaptation caused miscarriage

We’ll be opening up for discussion soon! Feel free to virtually raise your hand at any point. (Click “Reactions” at the bottom of your screen, then “Raise hand”)

I am concerned that there appears to be no control for initial generalized anxiety disorder and Fear of Childbirth. Virrtually all findings can be equally subsumed beneath GAD on entry. Not saying its not present but from an explanatory rubric GAD is at least as likely given prevalence

Are there issues with access to these alternative birth settings with regards to race and class?

Are the pregnancy-related anxiety and pregnancy-specific anxiety scales measuring something different from “fear” of childbirth?

Something of an opinion based question: You've touched on how some fear of childbirth comes from media representations of birth as an extremely painful, difficult,,etc. How much of this do you think is due to the overrepresentation of men as writers and directors in visual media? By employing more women in these occupations, could we work to alleviate some of this fear?

What things can, or have, been done to reduce socioeconomic differences in fear of childbirth?

Great point Emily!

Do other animals have assistance during birth?

There's a hamster species, P. campbelli, where the father assists during birth.

Interesting!

In response to Emily's post: From my reading experience, the most terrifying childbirth narratives are told by mothers and health practitioner from what they witnessed and what they experienced. On the contrary, the mainstream narratives about childbirth are usually reducing the pain involved to encourage women to give birth -- Maybe there is a cultural difference here?

Here is a paper on the hamster “midwives”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347201917658

Thanks for a great talk, that sparked a lot of discussion!

there's a wonderful Instagram account, that I recommend everyone check out, which depicts tons of variation in childbirth (very different from pop media) called @badassmotherbirther

I second checking out @badassmotherbirther ! Great account.

Thank you for such an interesting talk. I am doing some local research on women's changes to birth plans related to COVID. In our community (Utah) women were moving from in to out of hospital settings. The out of hospital providers had a lot less access to PPE. We will be publishing this in the Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health. Happy to chat with you about it katie.ward@nurs.utah.edu

Also want to boost the work of Dr. Stephanie Mitchell, who is working to open the first free-standing birth center in Alabama and the 12th Black-owned birth center in the US. Her instagram is @doctor_midwife

Great talk!

Thank you for a fabulous talk and discussion!

Great information

Great talk!

Thank you for this very informative talk!

Thank you, Zane, for this great talk!

This was wonderful, thank you!

Thank you Dr. Thayer and to this group for hosting... fabulous!

Hegmon, Michelle, and Wenda R. Trevathan. "Gender, anatomical knowledge, and pottery production: Implications of an anatomically unusual birth depicted on Mimbres pottery from southwestern New Mexico." American Antiquity (1996): 747-754.

Thanks, Karen!

Thanks!