Birth Trauma Resolution
As many as 1 in 3 mothers and birthing parents are affected by birth trauma. This can include trauma from conception, the antenatal period, the birth itself and the post-natal period as well as having a premature baby. Birth partners can also experience trauma from witnessing their partner go through a traumatic event.
If you’ve experienced trauma within the pre and perinatal period and are still feeling affected by it in any way, please know it’s never too late to get support, even if it was years or decades ago.
Symptoms of birth trauma can include:
Flashbacks Constantly feeling on edge or extremely alert
Nightmares Intrusive thoughts and images
Anxiety Difficulty bonding with your baby
Struggling to respond to your baby’s cues and needs.
Pain, nausea and other physical symptoms.
Post-partum depression Feeling distressed by any reminders of your birth
Difficulty sleeping Avoiding remembering or talking about your birth
Feeling constantly unsafe Needing drugs or alcohol to switch off, calm down, or numb out.
Feeling dissociated (like you’re not in your body)
Feeling worried about or avoiding having another baby because of your previous birth
Many of the treatments for birth trauma take a talking or cognitive approach which may not be effective for everyone. In fact, the opposite can be true with people reporting that these approaches can feel highly-activating, overwhelming and even re-traumatising.
Birth is a physical and physiological bodily process. I use a strength-based Somatic approach to working with birth trauma that brings the body and nervous-system into the picture to support clients to re-establish a sense of goodness, wholeness and connection to their knowing - all of which tends to get shattered by birth trauma.
In order to provide a comprehensive service to help clients heal from birth trauma I’ve spent 3 years training as a Somatic Experiencing therapist and have also completed an additional training in Advanced Somatic Skills for Prenatal and Perinatal Trauma with Kate White, one of the leading practitioners and teachers in the field of birth trauma resolution.
I’m able to offer this service both online and in person.
The cost of sessions are as follows:
50-60 Minute Session: £65
I’m able to take on a certain number of clients for a reduced fee for those who are low-waged or unwaged and would otherwise be unable to access this service. Feel free to get in touch with me to discuss this further
To find out more about how I can support you to begin to resolve your birth-trauma, contact me for a free 15 minute discussion.
How does birth trauma happen?
Birth Trauma can happen for a number of reasons, including during an unexpectedly long or overwhelmingly fast or intense birth, even if there were no interventions and by all appearances everything went ‘well’.
However, the vast majority of birth trauma results from modern birth practices. Many birthing mothers and people are left not knowing what’s happening to them, feeling frightened and out of control, that things happened very quickly to them, experiencing a lack of support and that they weren’t treated with dignity or respect.
Since the pandemic when many women and people had to birth alone, we have also seen an enormous increase in birth trauma related to the policies and practices from this period.
Even if you received medical care that was necessary for you or your baby, there may be a number of factors that led to the experience being traumatic.
As mammals, we must have a felt experience of safety to birth our babies. During birth and post-partum, our bodies are designed to go through an intricate unfolding of physiological responses governed by our nervous-system state (which in turn impact our oxytocin and adrenaline levels).
Hierarchies of power and the language used around birth and safety can be coercive and leave birthing women and people feeling they have no choice but to accept unwanted interventions. Obstetric violence is a very real feature of maternity services, with a lack of consent obtained for performing procedures on birthing women and people’s bodies, sometimes accompanied by a degree of force.
Prenatal trauma can occur as a result of a difficult conception and/or pregnancy while trauma in the post-partum period can occur as a result of challenges, difficulties and lack of support during this time.
