Navigating Childbirth Trauma: Recognizing, Confronting, and Healing After a Traumatic Birth Experience
I’d like to have a very (compassionately) honest conversation with you about a touchy subject – your child's birthing experience.
I know that you are so thankful and grateful for your baby, and I also know that you don’t really allow yourself to think about your birthing experience and have avoided all invitations to talk about it as much as humanly possible. If we’re honest, it was traumatic. Now, if you know me, you know that two things can be true – you can be grateful for your child and realize that your birthing experience fucking sucked.
If you are like the 1.3 million women who experience childbirth trauma annually, you likely felt that your medical provider and/or care team didn’t take the time to really listen to your needs or concerns or explain what was happening and why certain medical interventions were necessary.
Perhaps you were told that you were “overreacting” or “being dramatic” by your care team during painful contractions or medical interventions. Maybe they took their sweet time getting you pain medications (if they ever actually gave them to you), feeding you, or handling you and your baby with care. And if you’re a woman of color, then you likely went into your labor and delivery experience knowing you were more likely to die during birth than your white counterparts. If you’re Black, you also went in knowing that you had the greatest overall risk and played this in the back of your mind from the moment you realized you were pregnant.
What is Childbirth Trauma
Let’s be abundantly clear here, childbirth trauma isn’t a toddler-like tantrum because you didn’t get the birthing experience you wanted. You aren’t experiencing anger, shame, or guilt because you forgot to pack baby’s first outfit or because you didn’t get to do skin-to-skin like you outlined in your birthing plan. Childbirth trauma is the very reality that you or your child could have (or did) sustain serious injury or harm. Cheryl Beck, the researcher who coined the phrase “traumatic childbirth,” added that
“Birthing woman experience intense fear, helplessness, loss of control, and horror or [for] some women, a traumatic birth also involves perceiving their birthing experience as dehumanizing and stripping them of their dignity.”
Women who experience birth trauma are more likely to sustain severe psychological outcomes, with postpartum Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) being the most common. Other psychological outcomes include postpartum depression (PPD; the second most common outcome) and postpartum anxiety (PPA). If left unaddressed and untreated, these symptoms can result in chronic PTSD, depression, and anxiety. And despite your best efforts not to dwell on it, you find yourself running into countless reminders of your experience, including your child’s birthday (a.k.a. your trauma anniversary). So while you’re celebrating your little one turning one, your body is also processing how you were berated, frightened, and/or neglected. The consequences of birth trauma don’t just stop at PTSD and PPD – women who experience their childbirth as traumatic are more likely to avoid having sex with partners, show less interest in having more children (due to fear of another traumatic experience), and have significant challenges connecting with and trusting their bodies.
What Are the Signs of Birth Trauma?
The signs of birth trauma are consistent with the signs that we see in PTSD and can include a constellation of any of the following symptoms:
Recurrent, unwanted, and distressing memories of your birthing experience
Recurrent, distressing trauma-related dreams
Flashbacks to the trauma
Intense, prolonged physical reactions to the trauma (e.g., freezing or noticing your heartbeat racing during TV child birthing scenes)
Intense and prolonged psychological reactions to trauma reminders
Avoiding internal (e.g., memories, thoughts, and feelings) and external (e.g., people, places, and activities) reminders of the trauma
Forgetting important parts of the trauma experience
Persistent negative beliefs about yourself (e.g., “I am not safe”), others (e.g., “I can’t trust other people with my baby”), and the world (e.g., “Anything can harm me or my baby”)
Excessive self-blame
Chronic feelings of negative emotions (e.g., shame, guilt, or fear)
Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities
Detachment from others
Loss of positive emotions
Irritability and angry outbursts
Reckless or self-destructive behaviors
Hypervigilance (i.e., excessive watchfulness or the feeling of having to constantly look over the baby)
Being easily startled
Difficulty concentrating
Trouble with sleep, including difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or restless sleep
*Note, this list is strictly for educational purposes and should not be used to make diagnoses by non-mental health professionals.
How to Get Through Birth Trauma
Navigating your traumatic childbirth will require you to confront it and grieve it. That’s how I describe it to my clients - this is grief. Grieving your experience will help you confront the thoughts, memories, feelings, and physiological experiences that you have been avoiding. And as we know, avoidance only makes a problem worse.
Through therapy, you can process how you imagined birthing experience to be (i.e., what you imagined childbirth would be like growing up and/or while pregnant), where you felt ignored, dismissed, belittled, and/or neglected, and how to make sense of what feels like a clusterfuck of emotions (e.g., your competing anger at your birthing experience and joy with your baby).
Therapy will also help you reconnect with your body, rebuild your trust with yourself (including your body) and the world, and help you regain your power and voice to advocate for yourself and your family in the future. In some instances, I help clients support clients who wish to write letters or teach skills to have conversations with their medical provider (e.g., OB) about their neglect and lack of care as a form of closure.
Start Post-Birth Trauma Therapy in New York, NY
If you live in New York State and believe you’ve had a difficult or traumatic birthing experience, contact me today. I’d love to help. You don’t have to carry that pain in silence. Post-birth trauma therapy in New York can help you process what happened, reconnect with your body, and reclaim your voice. Start your therapy journey with The Lavender Therapy by following these steps:
Meet to see if I am the right therapeutic fit.
Start receiving the support you deserve to reconnect with yourself!
Other Services Offered at The Lavender Therapy
Therapy for postpartum and pregnancy challenges is not the only service that I offer. I am happy to also offer women’s therapy, family planning, and therapy for burnout. I also offer infertility and pregnancy loss support, and support with investment as well. Learn more by visiting my About page or blog today!
