When baby’s craving turns into an obsession

Why can a woman become obsessed with pregnancy?

Today, contraception has produced the illusion of fertility control. When the child is long overdue, women feel guilty, invalid. Obsession becomes a hellish spiral : the more they want a baby who does not come, the more they feel bad. They urgently need prove to themselves that they can be pregnant.

How can this obsession be translated?

Infertility creates a break that must be repaired at all costs in these women. Gradually, their whole life revolves around this desire for a childt and sometimes the sexual life is reduced to the reproductive part. Women count and recount the possible days of fertility, they revolt and become jealous of other women who manage to get pregnant after two months of trying. The mixture of all these feelings can produce tensions within the couple.

Is it a matter of infertility or can a “healthy” woman also experience this kind of obsession?

It’s not just a question of infertility. We live in a emergency society. Pregnancy, then the baby, is like a new consumer item that must be obtained immediately. However, we must understand that fertility is completely beyond our conscious calculations. This kind ofobsession is more present in couples who have been trying for a long time to have a baby.

In adolescence, there are sometimes young women who vaguely think that they will have difficulty procreating. During this period, they realize that they may have been injured, traumatized by an event, bereavement, abandonment or emotional deficiencies. We do not imagine how much becoming a mother brings back the figure of our own mother. It is essential to take stock of the bond with his mother in order to become a mother in her turn.

Can relatives help and how?

Honestly, no. Relatives are often annoying, they say ready-made sentences like: “don’t think about it anymore, it will come”. In those moments, no one can understand how these women feel. They feel devalued, they invalidate themselves as a woman and as a person. It’s a very violent feeling.

What then to do when this obsession takes more and more place in life and within the couple?

The remedy may be to talk to someone outside, neutral. Speak while understanding that, in this movement of letting go, things will get better. The goal is to be able to revisit its history and put words to its experience. Even if it takes a few months, this movement of speaking is beneficial. These women come to peace with themselves.

Jealousy, anger, tensions … how to fight against your emotions? Do you have any advice to give?

Unfortunately no, these emotions that inhabit us are totally involuntary. Society forces you to control your body, and, when this is not possible, it is not necessary to say the suffering, it is “forbidden” in a way. In fact, it is as if you are a volcano, with lava bubbling up, but this volcano cannot erupt.