Most new parents have a thought, at some point, that stops them cold. An image of dropping the baby on the stairs. A flash of something terrible happening during bath time. A sudden, sickening “what if” that seems to come from nowhere. These thoughts are far more common than people realise, but almost nobody talks about them. The shame is too great.
If you are a new parent experiencing frightening, unwanted thoughts about your baby, and those thoughts are causing you significant distress, you may be dealing with perinatal OCD. Understanding what this is, and what it is not, can be the first step towards feeling like yourself again.
What Is Perinatal OCD?
Perinatal OCD is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that develops during pregnancy or in the months following birth. Like all forms of OCD, it involves two components: obsessions (intrusive, unwanted thoughts or images that cause intense distress) and compulsions (behaviours or mental acts carried out to reduce that distress).
The obsessions in perinatal OCD tend to centre on your baby. Common examples include:
- Vivid images of accidentally harming the baby, such as dropping them or leaving them somewhere unsafe
- Thoughts about contamination, leading to excessive cleaning of bottles, clothes, or surfaces
- Fears of being a danger to your own child
- Recurring doubts about whether you did something wrong, such as checking the baby’s breathing repeatedly through the night
The compulsions that follow are attempts to neutralise the fear. You might find yourself checking the baby constantly, avoiding being alone with them, mentally reviewing every interaction, or seeking reassurance from your partner multiple times a day. These behaviours provide brief relief but ultimately strengthen the cycle.
The Difference Between a Thought and an Intention
This is the single most important thing to understand about perinatal OCD: having a thought is not the same as wanting to act on it.
Intrusive thoughts are a normal feature of the human mind. Research shows that the vast majority of new parents experience unwanted thoughts about harm coming to their baby. For most people, these thoughts come and go without much disturbance. But if you have OCD, your brain treats these thoughts as meaningful, as evidence that you are dangerous or that something awful will happen unless you take action.
The distress you feel is actually evidence that these thoughts go against everything you value. People with perinatal OCD are typically deeply caring parents who are terrified by their own minds. The thoughts feel real precisely because they clash so sharply with who you are.
Why It Gets Missed
Perinatal OCD is frequently misdiagnosed or missed entirely. Health visitors and GPs may screen for postnatal depression, but the specific pattern of intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviour often goes unrecognised.
Part of the problem is disclosure. Parents are understandably reluctant to tell anyone that they are having thoughts about harm coming to their baby. They fear being judged, or worse, that their baby might be taken away. This fear keeps people silent, sometimes for months or years.
Another barrier is confusion with other perinatal mental health difficulties. Perinatal OCD can look like generalised anxiety, particularly when the main compulsions are mental rather than visible. A parent who spends hours mentally reviewing their day for evidence of danger may appear simply “anxious” rather than caught in an OCD cycle.
How Therapy Helps
The evidence base for treating OCD is strong, and perinatal OCD responds well to the same approaches. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is the gold-standard treatment. ERP involves gradually learning to sit with the discomfort of an intrusive thought without performing the compulsion. Over time, this reduces the thought’s power and the anxiety it generates.
In practice, this might mean resisting the urge to check the baby one more time, or allowing an intrusive image to pass without mentally reviewing it. Your therapist works with you at a pace that feels manageable, building your confidence step by step.
For many parents with perinatal OCD, shame is a significant part of the picture. You may feel that having these thoughts makes you a bad parent, or that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) can be a valuable addition here, helping you develop a kinder relationship with yourself and reducing the self-blame that often accompanies the condition.
Therapy is also a space where you can finally say the thoughts out loud, often for the first time, without fear of judgement. For many parents, simply hearing that these thoughts are a recognised pattern, not a reflection of character, brings enormous relief.
You Are Not Your Thoughts
Perinatal OCD is treatable. It does not mean you are a dangerous parent. It means your brain’s threat system has become overactive at a time when you are primed to protect your baby. With the right support, the intrusive thoughts lose their grip, the compulsions ease, and you can begin to experience parenthood without the constant weight of fear.
If intrusive thoughts are affecting your experience as a parent, get in touch to book a free 15-minute consultation with one of our Clinical Psychologists. You do not need to keep carrying this alone.
