Birth Trauma: Understanding and Coping With a Traumatic Birth
Written by Sarah Stanger, PhD
Clinical Psychologist & Co-Founder at Prospera
What is birth trauma?
Our birth experiences don’t always follow our plan. Sometimes birth is just different than we expected, but other times it can be really scary. Birth trauma happens when you believe your or your baby’s life is in danger.
Examples of birth trauma can include:
- Having an emergency or unplanned C-section to save your life or the life of your baby or because of a complication during labor
- Having an unexpected complication immediately following birth, such as your baby needing oxygen or being placed in a neonatal intensive care unit
- Having prolonged, extremely short, or medically complicated labor
- Experiencing an injury during birth (e.g., vaginal tear, hemorrhage)
- Needing an assisted vaginal birth (e.g., using forceps or vacuum instruments)
- Experiencing poor pain relief
- Feeling a loss of privacy or dignity during the birth process
- Stillbirth or neonatal death
- Feeling like you were not in control, you were not involved in decisions about your baby’s birth, or you were not listened to by providers
These types of unexpected and distressing events are super common - up to 80% of women go through at least one of these experiences.
What happens after a traumatic birth?
As with other types of distressing or traumatic events, everyone’s journey after a traumatic birth can be different. However, there are some common symptoms that can arise and these are not all or nothing - it is really common for women with birth trauma to experience a handful of these symptoms postpartum.
Does having a traumatic birth mean I have PTSD?
The short answer is no! In general, when people experience any type of trauma, only a small percentage go on to develop PTSD and this is true for birth trauma as well. Many mothers' response to birth trauma actually looks more like mostly feeling really down (postpartum depression), feeling anxious (postpartum anxiety), and/or feeling angry (postpartum rage)! Additionally, clinicians don’t actually diagnose PTSD for more than a month after the trauma occurs because this type of stress response is so common in the first few days and weeks.
Does that mean you just have to wait and hope the symptoms go away on their own? Definitely not! Prospera coaches are here to help you cope with your birth trauma, no matter where you are in your postpartum journey.
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If I’m okay and my baby is okay - why am I feeling this way?
Birth is an incredibly unique experience - it is such an important milestone in your life, filled with so many expectations and emotions, yet it is also a medical procedure, subject to many possible complications that you cannot control and that can be life-threatening to you and/or your baby. When you experience birth as traumatic, your distress level is really high, which can make it difficult for your mind to process the birth experience like other memories.
Think of your memory like a filing cabinet. Most of your memories are filed and organized in a way that you can choose when you want to remember something, you pull the memory out of its file, and then put it back when you are done remembering. When you experience a traumatic event, it’s like the memory never gets filed correctly. Instead, this memory might be crumpled so the file doesn’t fit nicely, it might be mislabeled or pieces of the event might be filed separately instead of together as a cohesive story, all of which is making it hard to even close the filing cabinet. The cabinet keeps popping open when you don’t want it to, no matter how hard you keep pushing it shut.
What can I do to cope with birth trauma?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can provide the tools you need to cope with your birth trauma. Your instinct might be to try not to think about your birth, which makes sense - no one wants to purposefully think about things that are really upsetting.
However, one of the most important things you can do to start coping with your birth trauma is talk about your experience. At Prospera, we call this a counter behavior - doing the opposite of what your emotion tells you to do! Try to share your birth story - all of it, from beginning to end, with someone you trust. Talk it through with your partner, with your parent or sibling, with a close friend, or with a mental health coach or therapist. If you are comfortable doing this with your partner, you might ask them to help you piece together a timeline if you are missing certain details.
Your Prospera coach can also help you with this - your coach can guide you through the process of telling your story and processing the experience. By talking or writing about your birth story over and over again, you are helping your brain put the memory back into the filing cabinet so that you can access the memory when you want or need it with less distress.
CBT skills can also help you manage the strong emotions that might occur as a result of your birth trauma. Whether you are feeling more down, anxious, or angry, or a combination of these, your Prospera coach will guide you as you learn to notice your thought and behavior patterns and will support you to make changes that get you back to living in line with your values.
About Prospera:
Prospera is a mental health platform for fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum. We combine personalized 1-on-1 support with evidence-based coping tools to help women navigate anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, identity changes, and the many other emotional challenges that can arise during the motherhood journey.
Our programs were developed by clinical psychologists Drs. Andrea Niles and Sarah Stanger and are grounded in evidence-based approaches, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Need more support? Book a free consultation to learn more about Prospera and how we can help.
Sources
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20059799/
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