What You Need To Know About Birth Trauma
Research suggests that up to 45% of women have a traumatic birth experience.
You are not alone.
Takeaway: Birth trauma is not often discussed even though many women (unfortunately) experience it. In this blog post, I share several examples of birth trauma in an effort to remind women that they’re not alone. Plus, I offer my top tips for healing, including strategies that have helped my therapy clients.
We all had a birth plan. Maybe it wasn’t written out in specific details, or maybe it was. Either way, there was some sort of expectation for the experience. It’s a new baby arriving into the world! Maybe it’s what you have been looking forward to for months or years. It’s beautiful. And then the birth came and was not at all like you expected.
Did you experience birth trauma?
How do you know?
In this article, we will discuss what birth trauma is, provide birth trauma examples, and help you see how you can heal.
Understanding birth trauma
For many women, childbirth is not a pleasant experience. Birth trauma, sometimes called postpartum PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), can result when the delivery or birth is riddled with fear. Often there is a fear of death, either for the newborn or the mother. Birthing a child is a complicated process. Things can happen unexpectedly and changes in the plan may need to be made. For some people, the birth experience may lead to symptoms of trauma.
It is important to know your birth experience is valid whether or not you have postpartum PTSD. Each person responds to a possibly traumatic experience differently. What results in a post-trauma response for one person may not create the same response for another. An example I often use is a car accident. Two people can be in a car accident. One can walk away seeming unaffected and the other may be unable to get into a car for several days or even weeks. They had a similar experience but responded very differently. Neither is right or wrong. How you respond to your birth experience is what is important, and you deserve to get support.
It is also important to know that having a traumatic birth experience can lead to other perinatal mood concerns, such as postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety.
Symptoms of birth trauma might include:
Being fearful that something bad is going to happen
Unwanted, intrusive thoughts, often (but not always) about something bad happening to your baby
Excessive tearfulness or crying
Irritability, anger, or rage
Difficulty bonding with your baby
Being fearful of subsequent childbirth
Experiencing physical or emotional distress when at a hospital or medical clinic
Loss of trust in your medical team or other healthcare providers
4 common examples of birth trauma
In most cases, what makes childbirth traumatic is the fear that you or your baby are in danger. This may be a real fear or a perceived fear, but the result is the same- like all traumatic experiences, your body and mind are getting messages that something bad is going to happen. This, often combined with feeling a loss of control over the birth process can lead to a traumatic birth experience.
In our practice, here are the four most common risk factors or scenarios that we see leading to birth trauma or posttraumatic stress.
Emergency Cesarean Delivery (C-Section)
A common birth trauma example is an unplanned c-section. Many of our clients were hoping for a natural or vaginal birth (or maybe even a home birth!) but issues with the birth canal, baby's heart rate, or other labor and delivery complications warranted a c-section. While c-sections may be common, they are still considered major surgery. If you were not planning for a c-section and then it is decided (often very quickly) that it is the safest option for you and your baby, the unexpected change can lead to severe maternal distress. An unplanned c-section can be a traumatic event for pregnant women and new mothers. The unexpected fears around giving birth via c-section and resulting physical injury to your body can contribute to a traumatic childbirth.
Medical Interventions or Lack of Medical Interventions
Unwanted or unexpected medical interventions can cause significant distress for a delivering mother. This could be an assisted delivery or forceps delivery or even feeling that the healthcare team or doctor was rough or dismissive. Some women experiencing extreme pain may request the hospital staff to provide pain management when it is too late to receive it. The severe pain and resulting birth injury to the mother can cause lasting distress.
Loss of Control
For women who have experienced sexual abuse or a previous sexual assault, risk factors for childbirth trauma increase significantly. While healthcare professionals should always care for pregnant women using guidelines of trauma-informed care, the mere nature of childbirth can make a birth traumatic and lead to post-traumatic stress.
Healing from birth trauma: Tips from a therapist
The goal and purpose of any trauma treatment is to allow your brain to be able to have a memory of the traumatic experience without your body reacting like you or your baby are still in danger. When you can integrate the experience as something that happened (past tense) and not something that is currently happening, you start to heal. Our bodies do not recognize the difference between a memory and what is happening right now. Trauma healing allows you to re-engage with those difficult memories while working with your nervous system to remain in a physically calm state. There are multiple ways to do this, and one treatment approach may work better for you than another. The important thing to know is that birth trauma is treatable and you can feel better.
Written Exposure Therapy (WET)
Written Exposure Therapy utilizes written narrative (yes, writing with a pencil and paper) to process the traumatic experience. This brief, generally five-session, treatment approach is evidenced-based (this means research has shown it is effective) and accessible to many people. Working with a trained professional, you will be given prompts and then asked to write. During the sessions, your provider will be assessing emotional reactivity and work with you to engage in relaxation techniques when needed. WET is a gentle but very effective way to treat postpartum trauma. I recently wrote a blog all about WET. Check it out here.
Talk Therapy
Talk therapy can be a great treatment approach for many people. Being able to talk about your experience in a non-judgmental, safe space with a trained support person who can help you process the experience can be very healing. You should develop coping strategies for working with the difficult thoughts and emotions that come up. Talk therapy may take a little longer, as it is common for discussion to get sidetracked or avoidance behaviors to shift away from the traumatic event. With the right professional to keep the sessions on track this treatment can be highly effective.
EMDR
EMDR is a very popular and effective treatment for trauma. According to the American Psychological Association, it works by focusing “directly on the memory, and is intended to change the way that memory is stored in the brain, thus reducing and eliminating the problematic symptoms.” You can learn more about EMDR here.
We're here to support you at any point in your motherhood journey.
All of the mental health professionals at Exploration Counseling have specialized training and experience in birth trauma. We offer therapy in Colorado Springs and online throughout Colorado. We will work together to develop the best plan of care for you. We are intentional in providing a comfortable and safe space for you to talk about your experience. We also can provide Written Exposure Therapy if that is something you and your therapist feel could be helpful for you.
If you are interested in learning more about how we can help, please reach out. We look forward to connecting with you.
For anyone outside of Colorado, Postpartum Support International has a directory that can help find mental health support in your area. This can at least be a good starting point. You can find their website here.
