Staying Calm During Pregnancy Even in the Safe Room: Five Tips for Reducing Anxiety

Although the delivery rooms at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center have been moved to a protected location, allowing for active and safe delivery even when the sirens are blaring, many women in their final stages of pregnancy need to stay in safe rooms when there are sirens during the last months of pregnancy, which is a stressful experience in and of itself. The feeling of loss of control, fear for your safety and your baby's safety, and the physical limitations of pregnancy - all create a state of high anxiety, in addition to the natural and "normal" anxiety typical in the final months of pregnancy.

Below are five practical tools based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), currently the most proven treatment for anxiety and depression, that will help you get through this period better:

1. Change the interpretation, not the reality: The key principle in CBT is that we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control the way we interpret it. The event that occurs is objective - there's a siren and you need to enter the safe room. But if your interpretation is negative from the start - "The missile will fall on me and I can't run because I'm heavy," this could make you even more fearful and create feelings of anxiety. Instead, try a positive interpretation - "True, a missile is falling now - that's the event, but I’m so fortunate that someone’s with me, that I still don't have to run while holding a baby.” When we come from a place of gratitude, it gives us more strength to cope with the situation.
2. Focus on the here and now, not the future: Use anti-anxiety tools, like mindfulness. We feel anxiety when we think ahead about what might happen. Instead, focus on what's happening now: feel the ground beneath your feet, the cold that is soothing, focus on your breathing. Keep your thoughts in the present reality and not in future scenarios.
3. Use guided imagery: Instead of letting your thoughts wander to frightening places, guide them in a positive direction. Imagine how you would like the delivery of your baby to be, what you wish for yourself. Write or say out loud, "I wish myself an easy delivery, for the baby to be healthy.” Positive imagery helps calm the nervous system.
4. Count your breaths - "blowing out the candles on a cake with wishes": Imagine a birthday cake with candles that you're blowing out while making wishes at the same time. Count each time you inhale and exhale. Controlled inhaling and exhaling while counting creates a "disconnect" to the sympathetic system - the adrenaline system puts your body on alert. Counting takes you back to the parasympathetic system, which manages things that work automatically in the body, like your heartbeat.
5. Remember your strengths and plan ahead as much as possible: Think about things you've done in the past where you felt strong and powerful, where you proved you could do it. Additionally, it's important to plan ahead: if you have children at home, arrange with a neighbor or someone close by in case labor begins when there is a siren or you’re in the safe room. When you have solutions lined up in advance, your anxiety level decreases significantly.

And remember, our delivery rooms are protected. We are ready to receive you for delivery with us, in the delivery rooms at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, at any time. All our services, including complementary medicine and others, continue in full.

For questions about pregnancy and childbirth in wartime, or for a personal meeting with a midwife to create a birth plan, contact us by email: [email protected]

Protected delivery room at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center