Little Bundle of Fears : The baby’s home. Congratulations--and try not to panic.

Martha Ferrara had a baby girl last summer, and suddenly, she was frightened by stairs.

When carrying her daughter, Hillary, up and down the staircase of her Irvine home, Ferrara holds her tightly and grips the handrail with each step.

“As soon as we brought her home, I began thinking how horrible it would be if I slipped while holding her and fell down the stairs,” Ferrara says. “For a while, I avoided going up or down the stairs as much as possible.”

Although Ferrara has felt that her fear is a sign that she’s losing her grip on reality, experts say that such anxieties are normal for new parents who are struggling with added responsibilities and a change in lifestyle.

“They’re under a lot of stress, and having a baby in the house is new to them,” says Barbara Kreedman, Ph.D., a psychologist in Santa Ana. “In some cases, they project onto the baby what they may have experienced.”

After having her baby, Ferrara remembered an accident from 20 years before.

“I was at a mall with friends who were horsing around, and one of them slipped on an escalator and tumbled to the ground. He wasn’t seriously injured, but I remember the sound of his body hitting the steps and the scared look on his face.”

Fears--even irrational ones--are common for new parents, Kreedman says.

“With a baby in the house, they’re not sleeping well and they feel out of control. They’re suddenly responsible for a person who’s totally dependent on them, and that increases their feelings of vulnerability.”

To battle her fears that her child may be burned, Sharon Gordon of Orange always uses the back burner on her stove and makes a point of keeping the coffee pot at the back of the kitchen counter, far from the hands of her 2-year-old daughter, Haylee.

“When I was 5, I was burned by hot coffee and had to spend the summer in a cast. It was miserable,” Gordon says.

She admits her experience has left her “a little paranoid. My daughter once knocked some coffee on herself, and I overreacted. She was OK, but I cried. Burns are so painful, and I’d never want her to feel that pain.”

Being overly cautious about a child’s safety generally isn’t a problem unless it becomes extreme, Kreedman says.

“The parent is often trying to undo the trauma from the past,” she says. “They’re protecting the child they used to be.”

Parental anxieties aren’t limited to the mother.

“Some of Martha’s caution about the stairs has rubbed off on me,” says Ferrara’s husband, Ed. “I go up and down very carefully with the baby. I don’t want to think about how Martha’s going to feel when the baby tries to climb up the stairs herself.”

New-parent anxieties are intensified every day as Mom or Dad turns on the television news or picks up a newspaper. The stories of Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons in South Carolina; the woman in Long Beach who is accused of throwing her children over a bridge, and the three newborns who were found dead recently in Orange County are depressing, but to a new parent, these reports become almost too painful to hear.

“I know someone with two boys who were the same age (as the Smith children). Those stories just made her very upset,” Gordon says. “Before I had my daughter, I don’t think I would have taken much notice of the Smith case. I would have seen the news report and switched channels without thinking much of it. When you have children, you want to hear stories about children.”

Says psychologist Kreedman: “When people react to hearing about the babies that were washed up onto the beach, they’re projecting. They’re thinking, ‘My baby’s that age.’ They’re identifying their baby with the one that was found.”

*

The anguish that’s felt by those who read about a child murdered by a parent is not just because a baby has died.

“When they read or hear about someone acting out that anger, it’s frightening. It occurs to them, ‘What if I act out my feelings?’ ” says Marilyn Osborn, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Fullerton. “Most of us don’t; we have control over our impulses and support systems to help us, but reports like that scare us. A new parent has often anticipated that they’ll love this child unconditionally, and they’re shocked when they find that they can become angry or upset at a small child.”

A common parental anxiety is rumination, the act of pondering over a series of “what if” questions.

“I’m only 5 feet 2 inches tall,” says Ellen Mann of Yorba Linda. “But I’ve never been afraid that someone bigger might overpower me. Once I had a baby, I suddenly felt very small. I’d walk around the park with the stroller and I’d think, a big man could jump out and grab my son, and I wouldn’t be able to save him. I knew it was illogical, but thinking about that made me nuts.”

A case of the “what ifs” isn’t limited to the safety of the child. Parenthood has brought about new responsibilities, and mothers and fathers often consider the ramifications of what would happen if they were out of the picture.

“I never used to think about taking a plane before I was a parent,” Gordon says. “And now I do. I know families that will split when they fly someplace. Mom takes part of the family and one flight, Dad takes the rest in another flight.”

*

The most common fears surrounding a new baby involve sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and kidnaping.

“When my son was napping, I’d check on him about every 15 minutes,” Mann says. “At night, I’d get up almost every hour to hear him breathe or touch him to see if he was warm.”

Joanna Hayes, a North Tustin parent of a 2-year-old, who’s well past the threat of SIDS, finds she continues to worry when her daughter sleeps.

“After she was born, I was very afraid of her being taken from our room and stolen,” Hayes says. “I still use a baby monitor that shows that I have some residual concerns.”

To allay anxieties, many parents look for ways to prevent the frightful situation from occurring and to build their confidence as protectors. Experts suggest that if parents learn what to do if the fear becomes a reality, that knowledge will relieve some of the anxiety.

Mann, who felt she couldn’t defend her child against a larger person, took self-defense classes.

“I wanted to feel more in control,” Mann says, “and it’s given me more confidence when I’m out in public.”

Talking about the fear also helps. Says Martha Ferrara: “My husband wanted to know why I was nagging him about going up and down the stairs too fast with the baby, why I was so paranoid about the stairs. We talked, and it made me realize how affected I was by that escalator accident years ago.”

And, finally, experts say, the fears will eventually pass as the child grows older.