Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing treatment in pregnant women with Fear of Childbirth

About 6-10% of pregnant women have severe Fear of Childbirth. Our objective is to assess efficacy and safety of EMDR treatment for women with Fear of Childbirth. After screening 1600 pregnant women, 120 pregnant women with Fear of Childbirth will be randomized between care-as-usual and 3 sessions of 90 minutes EMDR.

Our hypotheses are that in follow-up measurement compared to pretreatment-measurement:
1) WITHIN treatment group there will be a decrease in the severity of the FoC symptoms, and
2) BETWEEN treatment group and care-as-usual group there will be less severe FoC symptoms, less caesarean sections, lower health care costs, and a more positive childbirth experience. Last hypothesis is
3) that EMDR does not lead to more obstetrical or neonatal complications.

Data will be collected at several timepoints:

-Screening (gestational age 8-20 weeks)

-T0:Pre-assessment (circa 20 weeks gestational age)

-In between sessions (every two weeks for care as usual)

-T1: Post-treatment antepartum (30-32 weeks gestational age)

-T2: Post-treatment postpartum (2-3months postpartum)

Care-as-usual group: care-as-usual is defined as standard care during pregnancy, with routine obstetrical checks. Assuming good clinical care, anxious pregnant women will receive more counseling compared to not-anxious pregnant women, but will (probably) not be referred for EMDR.



Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) group: EMDR is a psychological intervention that was developed for the treatment of traumatic memories. It is internationally recognized as a first choice therapy for treating posttraumatic stress disorder. EMDR is conducted according to the Dutch translation of the basic EMDR protocol 2015, and is provided in 3 sessions of 90 minutes. Eye movements were applied as the distracting stimulus.