Pregnancy is a major life transition for a woman. She is either taking on motherhood for the first time or expanding and redefining her role as a mother with a subsequent child. The prenatal months are a natural time of significant psychological adjustment, preparing the woman emotionally and physically for the arrival of her child.

This inner work of pregnancy arouses satisfaction, adjustments and also necessary amounts of stress and anxiety that inspire new possibilities.

One thing is almost for certain, everyone around her will be happy about her pregnancy while she may surprise herself by having doubt, conflicted feelings, disappointment, sadness, confusion, or even fears and anxieties. And of course, she'll also be happy. She may wonder how that contradiction is possible when prior to pregnancy she felt so certain about her path into motherhood.

Art therapy for pregnant women

A successful approach to working with feelings is to draw them. Art therapy literally gets the feelings out of the body onto paper.

This is how the participants of the project “School for Moms” depict their pregnancies on paper pouring out different feelings in them.