Our Research

Anxiety is common during and after pregnancy and is very distressing for those who experience it. 

One risk factor for anxiety is repetitive negative thinking (RNT), which is a tendency to engage in worry about the future or mull over negative events from the past, such as ‘will my baby be healthy?’ We have found that there is a clear relationship between levels of repetitive negative thinking and anxiety in pregnant women and new mothers. 

Our past research has shown that repetitive negative thinking is maintained by an unhelpful thinking habit of drawing negative conclusions (e.g., ‘my baby won’t be healthy’) from ambiguous or unclear information. We produced a simple, accessible, web-based training to help people stop drawing negative conclusions and instead make more positive and helpful interpretations (e.g., ‘my baby will be fine’). So far, we know our training helps non-pregnant people with high levels of RNT as well as those with anxiety disorders, leading to less anxiety three months later. 

Our recent research has shown that the tendency to draw negative conclusions is also associated with worry and anxiety in pregnant women. This suggests that a similar web-based training could also help pregnant women. Our other research showed that pregnant women who worry a lot benefited from a single session of our training by changing thinking habits and reducing worry in the short-term. We are now interested in working out whether our training can help to reduce worry and anxiety in pregnant women and new mothers in the long-term.