Giving birth is quite the experience to say the least. While there are many ways to prepare for birth, it’s one of those things where a lot of it is truly out of our control. Unfortunately, about 45% of new moms experience birth trauma.

Read on to learn more about Birth Trauma. If this is something you or someone you love has experience, please know that there is help available.

What is Birth Trauma?

Birth Trauma is the physical and/or emotional distress that you experience during or after birth.

This can include:

• Serious complications which put your and/or your baby’s health/life at risk

• Lack of care and/or support by your medical providers

• Lack of care and/or support from a partner or family members

• Not experiencing the birth that you wanted/expected

• Emergency C-Section

• Birth injuries to you or your baby

• Baby requiring medical attention after birth

During the birth you might have felt afraid, helpless, and/or unsupported by important others (such as your doctor and/or partner). Often afterwards you may feel numb, disconnected, and even feel guilty and responsible for the experience.

Even if everything turns out “okay” later, the effects of birth trauma can stay with you a lot longer.

What Makes a Birth “Traumatic”?

A hallmark of trauma is not what happened, but about how your body and brain reacted to what happened (and this reaction is out of our control). In order to understand more about birth trauma, we first need to understand more about trauma in general.

The Common Trauma Responses

We are innately wired for our survival. This means we have some automatic mechanisms that go into place when our brain perceives that we are in danger. The key word here is perceives. Even if you are not actually in danger of losing your life, if your brain thinks you could be, it will set off your survival response, which is the Fight, Flight, or Freeze response.

When your brain sets off Fight, Flight or Freeze, your brain sets off some automatic reactions to your body.

This includes:

• Your frontal cortex (the executive thinking part of your brain) will go “offline” and the emotional and instinctual part of your brain will take over.

• Your stress hormones will surge into your body, include adrenaline and cortisol

• Your heart rate and breathing become more rapid and shallow and your muscles start to tense

• Digestion slows down

While the Fight, Flight or Freeze response is helpful in a life or death situation that is requiring our immediate response, in a lot of cases where we can’t do anything (like in a traumatic birth), this response can later create difficulties for us.

Effects of Birth Trauma

It can take some time to process through what happened after you go through a difficult and/or traumatic birth. Many moms I have worked with have reported feeling numb and disconnected, especially in that early time. They also often feel a lot of guilt, feeling that their body “failed” and that they should have been able to protect their baby from that experience.

If baby is generally “okay” or is going to be “okay,” other people in your life may say things like-

“Everything worked out, so it’s all okay.”

Or

“You and baby are healthy and that’s all that matters.”

While they may mean well, to the person who went through that traumatic experience, it can feel dismissive of what they went through. Also, even though the actually traumatic event is “over”, the brain can have trouble processing this. A hallmark of trauma is, to the brain- it’s never ending.

During a traumatic experience, the brain will associate other things (such as sounds, smells, people, time of day/year, places, etc.) to the trauma. These can then become “triggers” in the future, where when you encounter them again, it tells the brain to set off an “alarm” that you may be in “danger” again.

For those that have long-term effects including mom or baby having permanent disability or baby not surviving, the trauma experience also becomes one of great grief and changes the course of their life.

The Impact of Birth Trauma on Your Daily Life

Many moms report feeling grief over not having the birth experience they wanted. They feel that they should be feeling happy and in some state of bliss with their baby, but instead feel sad, depressed, disconnected, apathetic, anxious, etc. This often leads to feeling ashamed of these feelings, so many moms tend to hide how they are actually feeling from their loved ones.

In order to cope with these feelings, some moms may turn to using alcohol, overeating, shopping/spending money, and other compulsive-like behavior. They may also find themselves lashing out at others, struggling in their relationships, including difficulties connecting to baby, 

Birth trauma can also lead to higher experiences of Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety, PTSD, Panic Attacks, etc.

Recovering from Birth Trauma

While experiencing birth trauma is very difficult, it’s important to know that you can process through it and get to a better place.

Everyone’s experience with birth trauma is going to be unique to them. It’s important to not compare yourself to others- such as saying, “it could have been worse, I didn’t have it as bad as others.” 

The thing to remember- when it comes to trauma, it’s not about the what that happened (like those details of what is “worse”) but it’s how your brain has experienced it. So for you, if it’s affecting you, that likely means the trauma has gotten “stuck.” and needs help to be processed.

Our brains have a natural healing process. For some people, it may mean that in time their brain will be able to start processing it on its own. For others, it may mean that they need additional help from a professional.

Treatment for Birth Trauma

There are different ways to treat birth trauma and the treatment will depend on your experience, how it’s affecting you, including the symptoms you’re experiencing, and what your support system looks like.

Some mothers find that talking about their birth experience to trusted and supported others is helpful. For some, the more they are able to talk about it, the more they are able to come to terms with what happened, and start to process through it in a way that is helpful.

Talking it out in therapy can also be helpful, especially if you feel uncomfortable talking about it to others or you feel that they aren’t able to understand it. Therapy can also be very important if you are finding yourself struggling in the postpartum time, especially if you are experiencing any symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.

EMDR Therapy for Birth Trauma

For some, talking is not enough, and they need a different kind of treatment that will better help process the trauma. At Happy Moms Therapy, we often use EMDR Therapy to help treat birth trauma.

EMDR, or Eye-Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy is a specialized therapy developed for treating trauma. EMDR has a very high efficacy rate- meaning that those that complete EMDR have a very high level of feeling better.

How to get Help for Birth Trauma?

There are different ways to seek out help for birth trauma. It can be helpful to inform your partner or another supportive person that you are struggling and need help. They can help you navigate finding more care if needed.

If you are in California and interested in my services here at Happy Moms Therapy, please reach out or schedule a free consultation.

I also have a Mom Support Group that starts up at different times. This group is for moms in the postpartum and/or early parenting time. We cover a variety of topics that are common struggles in this time and you are able to connect with and get support from other moms. If interested, please reach out to learn more.

Other ways to get help:

• Reach out to your treating doctor and share your symptoms.

• Find a therapist through your insurance.

• Search therapists on directories including: Psychology Today, Alma, Therapy Den, etc. to find a therapist specializing in Postpartum and Birth Trauma

If you feel that you’re not quite ready for therapy but finding yourself struggling in the postpartum time, check out my free Postpartum Support Plan below.

Disclaimer: This is not a replacement for a therapeutic relationship or mental health services. This is for educational purposes only and should be in used only in conjunction in working with a licensed mental health professional. If you are in California and looking for a professional therapist feel free to use the contact me to request an appointment or search Psychology Today for local therapists in your area.