From Fear to Freedom: Understanding Reproductive Anxiety - Alexia Leachman

0:00You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast episode number 576. Today we're talking about Going from Fear to Freedom, Understanding Reproductive Anxiety with Alexia Leachman.

0:14Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, Raising Good Humans Every Day, and the Raising Good Humans Guided Journal.

0:53Hello, welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast. I'm glad you're here. Happy 2026. I know. I'm a little late, but that's okay. Hey, in just a moment, we are going to be sitting down and talking to Alexia Leachman, who has been helping women overcome reproductive anxiety, tachophobia, and maternal mental health struggles through emotional healing and empowerment using the Head Trash Clearance Method. This is a pretty cool conversation. We're going to talk about deep-rooted fears around birth and motherhood and how to work through emotional wounds that can show up for us. So yeah, really, really interesting, really powerful.

1:36So join me at the table as I talk to Alexia Leachman.

1:45If you're a nurse or future nurse, you know how challenging and rewarding this career can be. Hi there, I'm Nurse Mo, creator of the Straight A Nursing Podcast. I'd love for you to join me every Thursday as I teach nursing concepts and share tips to help you succeed in school and at the bedside. Each episode breaks down often complex information so it's easy to understand, so you can feel more confident whether you're taking an exam or taking care of patients. So subscribe to the Straighten Nursing Podcast, and I'll see you on Thursday. Alexia, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama Podcast.

2:25Thank you so much for inviting me to this conversation. Yeah, well, this is such a fascinating subject. And I'm sure I'm absolutely sure it has to do with your own story. And I'm wondering what drew you to help women with reproductive anxiety. And you'll need to define it. Tachophobia. Tocophobia. Well, tocophobia is the fear of pregnancy and birth, well, pregnancy or birth. And I didn't know I had it until I fell pregnant. And even then I didn't know I had it. I just, it really hit me like a truck. And this is something that a lot of women who have tocophobia, when they only realise they have it when they're pregnant.

3:09And I saw those two lines and I knew in that moment that I was not okay with being pregnant, but I didn't know why. And that was really, really intense because it was so confusing what I was experiencing. And I wasn't happy with the situation yet. The main narrative is that when women get pregnant, they're really happy about that. And I was not happy with the situation. And so I was resting with that. Well, they're either really happy or really unhappy. It's like kind of nothing in the middle. But generally, it wasn't just not unhappy. It was total, this is not okay. The world now needs to swallow me whole because I cannot cope with this situation.

3:52And it took me, I don't know, like a few weeks to kind of grapple and get to like accept it a little bit. But I had to go into the neonatal unit quite a lot because I didn't know my last period date and they needed that for my due date. And so I kept going in and out. and then it was there that I lost the baby I found I lost the baby and oh I'm so sorry but I had relief that was a huge relief and in that moment I was like that is not okay what is wrong with you Lex that you are now relieved at a miscarriage and that is what propelled me onto my healing journey because I was like I've got to know what what is that about why did I feel that way am I feeling that way.

4:34And I just thought I was crazy, like weird, like there was something wrong with me. And I'd not long lost my mum. So I was wrestling a grief, really bad depression, really bad anxiety. It was a hot mess anyway. So in my mind, I was just a total hot mess. And it was that. I didn't know that there was a thing called tocophobia. And actually, it was that that was going on. And it was only like many years later, after I'd had a baby that I discovered the term. So I was wrestling with all of that without knowing what I was wrestling with. Did you want the child in the first, like you want, was it a surprise and oops or was this?

5:12It was a total surprise. It was unplanned. But now picture this, right? I was 36 in a long-term relationship. And one of the biggest stresses I had at that moment was, I don't know if he wants to be a dad. I don't know. I don't know. I'm like, I'm going to be a single mom. So we hadn't had the baby conversation, right? That's classic tachophobia right there, because they can't even handle the conversation. They can't talk about it. Women with tachophobia have very struggled to plan for it. And so I was in this situation where I didn't even know if you wanted kids. And then we had the conversation, obviously, because then that was forced.

5:47And yes, then he said he did. So then once we lost baby, It was like, okay, we want a baby now. So then I did a lot of healing around trying to figure out what was wrong with me and heal that. And so I'd moved the needle enough that when I got pregnant a year later and I saw the two lines, I was like, okay, okay, this is good, kind of. I'm still terrified, but I'm going to find a way through it. Whereas before that courage was lacking, it was not there. and so I reached out to all the things that are available to you as a woman that's scared of birth and typically that's hypnobirthing and I devoured everything I could find and nothing worked.

6:31I was still, it just didn't hit the sides and it's like well this is, I'm now reaching the end of my first trimester thinking I've got to sort this out because that due date is not moving anywhere, like I've got to sort this out and in my mind I had a therapy list as long as there was no way I was going to get time to do that in the time I had left. And I didn't have the budget for that anyway, because I felt I needed to do daily work. And so that's what forced me to have to figure this out myself. And so I'd done a lot of training and lots of other healing and mindsets of mine. I was a business coach at the time.

7:04And so I was like, I'm going to figure this out. And so I developed a way that I started testing on myself to clear my fears. And I tested it at my first midwife appointment. And so when would that have been? I don't know, in third of the It was very bad at the end of the first trimester, I guess. And I remember like saying to the method that I was playing with, I pointed at it in the sky. I was like, right, if you're any good, show me what you've got, you know. And so I'm sitting in this appointment because she was telling me about all the need, like the injections she was going to give me. And I was terrified of needles.

7:35I've never left a needle or injection appointment conscious. I've always fainted. Really bad vasovagal risk. Like always really bad response. any blood draws anything like that I couldn't handle them at all and and then she tells me she's going to give me all these injections and at that point I stopped listening and I was just thinking oh my god and she's going to I wasn't listening to a word she was saying and she's like she clocked it you know she saw how I was just don't worry you can wait outside while I get all the needles ready and it's like not helping not helping so I'm outside you know waiting for her to get all the needles ready, pointing at the sky, like, okay, show me what you've got.

8:11And I did what I now call a clearance in the hospital corridor. And within a few minutes, she called me back in because there was only three injections at the end of the day. It wasn't that bad. And she said, are you scared of needles? And I was like, nope. And I was like, well, who said that? Because that was an instant response. And as far as I was concerned, I absolutely was scared of needles. Excuse me. And so then I went on, I gave my hand over and And I had three injections and I was absolutely fine. I was like, wow, I've never been able to do that. That's insane. And so I was processing and trying to get my head around what I'd just experienced.

8:48I thought, okay, well, if it works on that, I'm going to do all my fears, all my pregnancy fears, all my everything. I'm going to work through all that. So I got home and I wrote down every single fear I had about birth, about pregnancy, about motherhood, like everything. all the things that were really preying on my mind and I just worked through them like a to-do list and that's what I spent my second trimester doing and so by month seven you know my initial birth plan was c-section with all the drugs I did not want to be conscious for that experience at all and then in month seven I was like we'll have a home birth so I ended up having a home birth and that's what ended up being an incredible experience for me and um yeah it was only when my first daughter was about six months old that I discovered tocophobia and what that was.

9:37And I was like, holy moly, that is what I had. That's what I had. And I didn't even know about it. I'd never heard of it. You know, I was a university educated, 36-year-old woman in a senior position in corporate. And, you know, I read up on health and wellness. I used to work in the health and beauty industry, like, you know, and yet tocophobia did not hit my radar at all. Didn't know about it. And it affects more than 50 % of women. And I did not know about this.

10:12Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.

10:20I think a lot of people don't know about it. I mean, I can relate to a lot of what you're saying. Like when I was a kid, they had to have nurses come and sit on me to like draw blood because I would be so upset. They would have the biggest nurses come and like sit down on me to hold me down. And yeah, I mean, well, I'm curious though, talkophobia, right? Like the sort of labeling this, you know, as like talkophobia, like I have, you know, I feel like I have arachnophobia. Like, I'm very scared of spiders. But how is this different from just, you know, how is this different from the general spectrum of reproductive anxiety?

11:02Because it makes sense that we should have fear of childbirth. It's something that has killed women throughout history, right? Like, that's a very legitimate fear. It is. So, yeah, I mean, I guess along that, where do most people fall along that spectrum? And how is this, you know, how is this distinguished as this most extreme version of it? Well, and it's a really good question because the spectrum of fear and anxiety is very blurred. And often we use the word fear and anxiety interchangeably and they shouldn't really be. But fear is something that's facing you right there and then. So if your life is in danger in that moment, then that's fear.

11:50If it's not and you're imagining a future situation, that's anxiety. But we use the word fear anyway. So it's important to understand that distinction already. but when it comes to tachyphobia the response is a visceral it's a visceral body full body response and it's total panic they don't often know why they feel that way so I did I could not explain what I was feeling and why I was feeling I couldn't point to any one experience apart from in biology class when they showed us that video of a woman giving birth that that you know I was traumatized because of that video. But no, that is not the case.

12:27That video simply awoke that within me. I was already carrying that trauma. The trauma was not of watching a video of somebody giving birth. And so the tokophobia really is this visceral, full response that doesn't really make sense. It's not coming from the conscious, rational mind where you go, well, I'm scared because it's non-explainable. It comes from somewhere much deeper. And that's because it is rooted in trauma. And it's likely to be rooted in a trauma that you have no recollection of. And that's why you can't explain it. Because you don't know why you, you know, if a woman's never given birth, how can she possibly be scared of birth?

13:11Like, well, what's that about? I'd never done it before. How could I be scared? And so we look through our life experiences for, oh, well, maybe it's because I saw that video. It's cool. Maybe it's because I heard about my mom talking about, you know. But it could be like arachnophobia or fear of snakes, like where these are things that are inherited and passed down in humanity. Because there are legitimate reasons that the people who did not have that fear may not have passed down their genes because they died. And the people who did, except, yeah, I mean, yeah, childbirth, you know, someone passed down their genes to all.

13:47I mean, it could be like that, I suppose. Oh, absolutely. Ancestral trauma, well, the likely trauma, at least the trauma that comes up for me with the clients that I work with, is birth trauma. And that is your own birth. So your own arrival in the world was traumatic. And it's that that is now planned. That's the reproductive trauma at play. It might not always be that in the work that I do with women. I'd say about 80 % of the women, it's their own birth, but it can also be puberty trauma. Or if you've got secondary tocophobia, where you have given birth and that was traumatic, then that could also be that.

14:23So reproductive anxiety disorder, as I'm calling it, is where the root trauma is reproductive in nature, and it affects you and your reproductive life. So what I've observed with the women I work with, especially let's say, if you've got that root birth trauma, then it will start being awakened, if you like, at the beginning when your reproductive cycle comes online during puberty, which may then contribute to puberty trauma. Now, puberty trauma could also be, other contributing factors there could be where your mother maybe didn't talk you through about what to expect with puberty. Maybe there was shame.

15:00I remember I had a client and I said to her, I said, I think you've got puberty trauma. And then I reflected on myself and I was telling my daughter about this, who's also going through puberty. And she said, how old are you, mum, when you went through puberty? You know, when you had your first period. And I was like, I have no idea. And I thought, wow, I don't know how old I was. I cannot remember whether there was pads, like if I was at home, at school, I've got nothing, nothing there. I don't remember any of it either. I tried to remember and I don't. No. And I'm like, I've got nothing. And I was like, like, well, and as somebody that heals trauma and others, I like, well, that's a telling sign.

15:37Maybe that was traumatic for me. And there's always been a bit of shame around my period for me. And now I look at my daughter, I talked her through, she's like waving pads around the house and talking about it. And I'm still like, you know, and like, wow, I've actually, I've got a lot of shame around menstrual cycles. And I was like, oh, and I don't remember it. So, and this, you know, then I've started seeing and working with clients and healing their own puberty trauma. So if you then have your birth trauma and you stack a puberty trauma on top of that. Now you're looking at things like body image issues, you know, sort of discover the weight, the changes that you go through at puberty are now going to start layering on.

16:11And so as women, we start accumulating this if we're not actively healing it. Now, if we don't realise what's going on, why would we start healing it? Like, I've not really heard of a lot of people talking about puberty trauma. And also there's not really a lot of people talking about the trauma of our own birth. If it's something we can't remember, again, that's not an easy one to go and find somebody to help to work on that if you don't remember it. You don't realise it's there until it shows up in something like tocophobia. And so what I've observed is the continuation, almost like the stacking of trauma, if you like.

16:44And then if it's still not addressed, then maybe this explains why during perimenopause, women ramp up again with more anxiety, because now it's the signaling of the end of the reproductive cycle. And the nature of our Our reproduction system is just bringing all of this and churning it through as our body is changing. We're not in control of our body changing. We don't know. Hormones are throwing in. I mean, hormones are the great amplifier. So if you're not comfortable, if you're anxious, they're just going to really ramp up. And so we've got all of these changes that are happening to our body and we're not in control of that.

17:18And that is the biggest, most common theme I find with women who have fear about birth. and whether it's tachyphobia or even just mild or moderate fear is the loss of control. They don't like the idea of not being in control. And especially when you've got A-type women, high-achieving, high-performing women that may be corporate, and they really struggle with birth and pregnancy because they're not in control. And again, when we think about how our body changes throughout the whole of our reproductive cycle, we're not in control of any of that. When you get pregnant, you don't know if you're going to be big, if you're going to carry it around the front.

17:53When your birth, you don't know any of it. You've just got to go in blind. And that is very unsettling. But also when you're born and you go down the birth canal, you're being born, you don't know anything there either. You don't know whether these contractions are going to be too much. You don't know. So a lot of that is seeded at these very, very early experiences. And the reason why phocophobia is so visceral, especially I find that in those that have got that trauma of their own birth is because it literally is in the fabric of your body and your fascia. It's just so embedded with it. It's an emotional blueprint, which is why it's not, it's pre-verbal.

18:31You can't, you don't know it's there. You don't realise it, but you feel it, which is why you can't hold a baby. You can't even talk about it. Huge avoidance around all of that because it's not even entering your conscious mind. Like I didn't even know, like how could I have not spoken about babies to my long-term Hartler at 36. Like, how did we not even have that conversation? Well, that's because I was a massive avoidance. Like I was doing a very good job, but I didn't even realise I'd done it. And so this is why there are so many women out there that have it and they don't know they have it because they, one, they don't know it exists because it's got such poor awareness, but they're not even, they just think, well, I'm just not maternal.

19:11I just, well, I don't think I'm going to have kids. And that might be true that maybe they want to be childless. Maybe they don't want kids. But, you know, maybe they also say, well, I'll probably foster or I'll maybe surrogate, but no, not my own. And that's a big clue right there, right? Because, oh, you want to be a mother, but you don't want a biological child. But, you know, so there's lots of clues around women that have tocopher, and girls, you know, teenagers and young women too. Let's be clear. It's not just, you know, as a mother with daughters, you know, it's really interesting for me with my two daughters where my eldest, I had tocophobia for her.

19:48So in her first trimester, I was full on fear. And even though I healed all of that in my second trimester, while she was being created, I was a fearful mess. You had all those, that cortisol, all of that. All of that goes through the barrier. It's not like there's a... Exactly. So she's got that. She's got a little bit. And when we talk about babies and she's like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to have kids. You know, she shrugs it off, right? Baby number two, where I was all healed and I'd done all the work and, you know, I was, you know, a very different place for her. She's like, I'm going to have eight babies, mom.

20:24I want all the babies. Like she's always talking about that. And, you know, she's really into that. I's like, oh, isn't that interesting? The difference between them and how they're responding to this idea of kids. And so I think we just need to be aware of that as mothers, if we have daughters and open up conversations, you know, but also as women to start conversations with our sisters, with our friends. If you spot somebody that you see is maybe avoiding the conversation, doesn't want to talk about babies, is maybe, you know, having those, you know, just avoiding it, then maybe there's a conversation to be had there to sort of clue her in.

20:59Because the difficult thing, the tragic thing, and I've worked with a lot of women like this too, is that they come to me when they're 40, 41, and they're like, I've missed the boat. And now I realise I did want kids. And now can you help me just make peace with that, please? And if they'd known about that sooner, you know, because the healing journey is not a linear, straightforward one for everyone. It can take time. And then you've got fertility to deal with. So the sooner women can understand that this is a condition that exists, and the sooner they can start their healing journey, to at least give them the opportunity to go, you know what, actually, I don't want kids.

21:35And I know that with my heart. And I've helped women like that too. And they're like, I don't know if I want kids or not. My partner wants them. I don't know. I think it's my fear talking. Can you just help me figure this out? Because I want to make a decision that I can trust, that I won't regret later. And so I, you know, and so we work, we do the work and then they're like, oh yeah, I do. And then they get pregnant and now they're mums and all the rest of it. And others are like, no now I know for sure I don't want kids thank you now I can just move on with my life rather than this thing just weighing over me you know so it really is about us women just helping other women to realize daughters sisters friends about this so that we can clue them in and help them get on the path that's going to really help make them happy you know yeah this is something I certainly never thought about you know as you're speaking I can relate my first pregnancy I really wanted to get pregnant, I was like, I had, I had a friend come over, was pregnant with twins, and she was huge.

22:32And I remember touching her belly, and then feeling this feeling like, oh, I want this. And that was fun. That was great. It was like, that was so fun to just be, you know, okay, let's do it. And I had a real biological body urge to do that. But then when I was pregnant, I, you know, I had anxiety about it, but I never would have labeled it that because I wouldn't even think the word anxiety because it's too scary to even think the word anxiety. But I remember thinking that, and I had my, you know, I had a, we have a freestanding birth center and it was all good and I'm doing the classes, but then people had asked me about it.

23:12I'd say, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna think about it too much. You know, if you're about to like, Like if you're going to just, my statement was, if you're going to go jump off a cliff, why are you going to think about it ahead of time, right? Like I'm just going to try to stay present, which in retrospect was a clue that I was a little, that I was kind of scared and it was very intense. But yeah, with baby number two, and then she does, that daughter does have a lot more anxiety and actually she doesn't want to have kids. but with baby number two I did hypnobirthing and wow hypnobirthing you know and then I had been through this experience once I knew I could I was gonna be okay you know I knew at least my body gave birth to babies fast so that was like a relief that it wasn't gonna be like some 30-hour thing and uh and they got also got a birth time at the first time so and then I did hypnobirthing And that made all the difference in the world for me, you know, for the levels that I had.

24:15And that child is actually more inclined to have kids, I think. It's so interesting. We're kind of lining up with your... Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating. And this idea of... And I want to also, you know, there could be some people listening, thinking, oh, no, I was really worried. I was anxious. Oh, I am pregnant. And I'm, you know, I don't want... The mum guilt can kick in, you know, when you're pregnant. thinking oh my goodness but I'm not you know I'm resting with this at work I've got family whatever there's stuff going on and well how's that going to affect the baby I'm carrying and and and it what's really important for the baby is that you experience a full range of human emotion and so yeah if you have difficult days good days and it's up and down that's that's what being human's all about right it's when there's something that's a significant let's say let's say you lose a love like a a parent during your pregnancy then that's obviously going to take you somewhere that's outside of the realm of normal human experience.