What IS Birth Trauma?
For many women, the most traumatic aspects of childbirth are caused by something other than a medical emergency - the way women are treated or spoken to during labor and delivery can cause extreme distress, sometimes resulting in trauma or PTSD.
Cheryl Tatano Beck's research on trauma caused by childbirth defines childbirth trauma as "an event occurring during the labor and delivery process that involves actual or threatened serious injury or death to the mother or her infant", and experiences of intense fear, helplessness, loss of control, and horror. Based on her research, she later expanded that definition to include events during labor and delivery where the birthing person feels/perceives that they've been stripped of their dignity.
Common causes of birth trauma can include:
Lack of communication
Not feeling supported or reassured
Feeling pressured into making critical, complex decisions quickly during labor or immediately following the birth
Unexpected changes to how you were planning your birth
Having decisions taken out of your hands
Routine measures or medically necessary interventions (measures that are routine to a medical professional may feel overwhelming to a birthing person)
Feeling that you're out of control and helpless to help yourself or your baby----even when you and your baby are now “fine”
Past traumas—including attachment wounds that can easily be retriggered by lack of support, reassurance, and respect
After a difficult childbirth, it’s common to hear moms express sentiments like, “No one explained what was happening to me or my baby”; “I felt like things were being ‘done to’ me, like I was an object, a ‘thing’”; “I felt like my concerns/fears/requests were dismissed, not taken seriously” - Your trauma history can have a big impact on your childbirth experience, and it is important to know that you, as the mother, are not at fault. You experience, whatever it may have been, is completely valid. You deserve to feel seen and heard in regard to how you felt during your birth experience.
It is important to note, too, that is is not uncommon for past traumas to resurface after childbirth. Traumas caused by emotional neglect, physical or sexual abuse, past medical traumas, or early attachment traumas can be triggered during or after childbirth. When past trauma is stirred up by things that occur during your labor, delivery, or postpartum it’s important to again remember that it’s not your fault, and you didn’t cause it. A trauma response is a neurobiological function, which means that it happens automatically. It’s your nervous system working hard to keep you safe. Very importantly, if you feel your childbirth was traumatic, then it was.
If childbirth was difficult for you, it's important not to dismiss or minimize this part of your experience, especially when your distress or fears continue longer than the first month after your baby is born. Postpartum depression, anxiety and PTSD are highly treatable.
If you would like to learn more about birth trauma and the options available to you for healing, please connect with us - we would welcome the opportunity to support you!