Most couples are delighted to learn about a pregnancy, especially if they have been waiting for a child for a long time. However, for Bronie Twiddle from the UK, pregnancy brought not joy, but fear and anxiety. The cause was her phobia related to vomiting, which she had struggled with for about 25 years.
According to The Sun, Bronie experienced such a strong fear of vomiting that even watching someone else vomit caused her panic attacks. The symptoms of nausea in early pregnancy re-exacerbated her long-standing fear, leading her to contemplate ending the life.
Ultimately, at eight weeks of pregnancy, she made the decision to terminate it. This was an extremely difficult decision for both her and her husband, as they desired the child. Bronie decided to share her story two years later so that other women struggling with similar issues would not feel alone.
Bronie recalls that she does not remember when her fear of vomiting began. However, she vividly remembers an incident at the age of eight: one of her friends vomited in front of her on the back seat of her mother's car. This fear intensified during family trips due to her brother's motion sickness. Gradually, avoiding vomiting became part of her life. She refused to visit theme parks or consume alcohol to avoid getting sick herself. If she learned about a recent norovirus infection at any event, she simply wouldn't go there.
Bronie feared not only other people's vomiting but also the illness itself. This unusually intense and persistent fear of vomiting is called emetophobia. For a long time, she thought she was alone in suffering from it until she learned that such cases occurred. According to her estimates, approximately 2–7 percent of people may suffer from emetophobia, and this fear often manifests in childhood, occurring quite frequently among women.
Bronie tried to cope with her fear. In the late 2000s, she underwent Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) through the NHS. During therapy, she was gradually accustomed to what she feared the most. Initially, she was shown a video of a girl vomiting on a roller coaster; this brought her to tears and a panic attack. Nevertheless, she continued watching the video, and her fear began to subside. Then, she was offered an exercise involving confronting her fear by sitting in a car and imagining vomiting.
After getting married, almost two years later, in January 2024, Bronie felt ready for motherhood with her husband. They started trying to start a family, but during this period, other problems arose in their lives. In March, she learned that her father had colon cancer and her grandmother had breast cancer.
While her husband was out with friends for the weekend, Bronie contracted norovirus. Because she did not want to infect other family members, she tried to manage the illness alone. However, after about 24 hours, she asked her husband to come home. For the first time since childhood, she vomited severely, unable to stop, and it happened about five times. But this time, she felt something different: the symptoms of vomiting and nausea did not pass. Then she discovered that her period was delayed by about two weeks—she was pregnant.
When Bronie told her family about the pregnancy, everyone was happy. The family had already been through many difficulties, and Bronie wanted this news to bring happiness to everyone. However, something else was happening inside her. She feared that the morning sickness associated with pregnancy would reawaken her old emetophobia. To avoid constant nausea, she tried eating baguettes and grapes until two in the morning. Although vomiting did not occur, the constant severe nausea worried her.
By the seventh week of pregnancy, her condition deteriorated so much that she sought medical attention. She sought help, but according to her, they did not give her anti-nausea medication then, advising her instead to try ginger. For Bronie, this was a very disappointing moment.
The constant fear, nausea, and lack of sleep worsened her mental state. Bronie began to think that she could not move forward. Her husband also noticed that her condition was becoming serious. He contacted a crisis helpline, but he felt that the people there did not understand emetophobia or the seriousness of her situation. At that point, her husband told her that she did not have to force herself to continue the pregnancy. He stated that Bronie's safety was the top priority.