Birth Trauma: Healing Takes A Village
Birth is an experience that is different for everyone. Much of the birth experience depends on your role or your perceived role. Comparatively, one could make the same connection with trauma as it relates to birth. As a pregnant woman, I didn't think much about the trauma associated with birth until it was too late. Too late to change providers, too far into the pregnancy to rethink things, but I believe that considering all the possibilities when it comes to birth is very important to a positive birthing experience.
Understanding Birth Trauma
Often we consider birth trauma as the experience of labor and the birth of a child. However, birth trauma is also commonly referred to as any negative experience during the prenatal and postnatal periods.
So how will your childhood fantasies of your birth experience escalate to trauma?
Well, many factors can create this; the black birthing experience is not always a pleasant one. My experience included black doctors, but I realized too late that doctors take a technocratic approach to birth. There was so much fear in all aspects of my delivery due to it being considered high-risk that I felt there was little room to advocate for myself. However, I did not create enough space back then to learn how to advocate for myself properly. I was working a full-time position until your due date can make it extremely difficult to educate yourself through childbirth classes and other prenatal experiences. And also, the women in my family did not stress this importance. I think there were a lot of reasons that childbirth education was not stressed to me. When my mother was in her childbearing years, she started a family in her hometown and was surrounded by her mother, her aunts, and the matriarch of the family at the time, my great-grandmother. She likely did not get formal child-birthing education except what her family offered her as “the way '' to introduce me, her firstborn child, into the world. However, that was not my situation. I had moved away from home and married someone of another culture, and those two things played a part in my access and my family's willingness to support me with advice. Because of those factors alone, childbirth education should have been at the top of my list when I discovered my husband, and I were pregnant. I would be remiss if I did not necessarily feel like I had a strong village before or after the birth of my first child, specifically.
Tips to Minimize and Overcome Birth Trauma
1. Take advantage of childbirth education opportunities! Childbirth education will be invaluable as you prepare and receive your child. It helps to orient you to a new stage of life and allows you to process and understand what will be required of you as a new parent and how you can be most successful at bonding and creating a nurturing environment for your child. Intuition is powerful, but remember that you will transition into a new role as a first-time parent or a new parent to a second child after a significant child gap. With the speed of technology and how we share information on social media, it will be essential to understand what's new in childbirth education, what no longer applies, and what is still the same since you were a baby.
Unless you are the type to geek out on information when you are in a new stage of life, it may be super tempting to skip these classes. Childbirth education classes are known for being very traditional and boring, which may differ from how you view yourself fitting in. However, there are so many different types of classes, and every childbirth educator is different. Look for childbirth classes and educators you resonate with and feel will support your birth process. The more information you have stored for your birth, the less likely you will be to panic when something unexpected arises. It doesn't matter what your family or friends did relative to childbirth education. Empower yourself by bridging the gaps in what you know about birth, healing modalities, pregnancy, lactation, and the role of your supportive partners. More birth trauma than you realize has an opportunity to manifest as a result of not knowing how to advocate for yourself and your baby, and you can learn through childbirth education.
2. Don't assume kinship support will be available. Kinship support can be invaluable when your family is willing and available to assist you during your birth experience, especially during your postpartum period. However, many first-time mothers overestimate how readily that resource will be available and underestimate the amount of help needed. Often first-time mothers especially hope and even expect they will get guidance on newborn care from their mother or other women in their family. When you can, this can be more comfortable than hiring someone you may not be as familiar with or attempting to suck it up and do it alone or solely with the help of your spouse or partner.
Although, kinship support does not always equate to a supportive experience, especially when you have adopted beliefs from your mother or relatives or hope to raise your child differently. If you know you have a strained relationship with your parents or in-laws, then kinship support may not be available. Conflicts are generally never pleasant, especially when the family is involved, but are surprisingly easy to come by when a new life event changes the dynamic of both the immediate family of the birthing person and the extended family. Kinship support for many people is a priority, but conflicts arise quickly with unexpressed physical and emotional expectations, misaligned beliefs, and compensatory expectations.
Kinship support is not the only support available, especially postpartum. A doula's emotional and physical support can make the difference between having a traumatic birth and a postpartum experience. Many kinship connections can sometimes frown on this type of support as it replaces kinship support. Contrarily, a doula can fill in the gaps of kinship support and allow for the balance between enjoying a new addition to the family and supporting the parent who recently birthed the child. A supportive postpartum doula has endless benefits depending on the type of support you desire and would find comfort in.
3. Don't wait until someone else acknowledges your birth trauma to seek help. If you have discomfort, confusion, or negative aspects of your birth experience in your head, don't wait for someone to agree with your thoughts on your labor, delivery, or birth experience. Seek support to talk through, heal, and resolve your negative feelings. While I didn't have alternative forms of physical labor and birth support I desired, emotional support can help circumvent postpartum depression if you listen to your feelings early on. Despite many pregnant and new mothers hearing a lot of facts and reading about postpartum depression when they are experiencing early symptoms, it can be hard for you to decipher. You often feel guilt for checking in on yourself through therapy, intuitive guidance, or other alternative healing methods because you do not have adequate physical support to nurture your child.
Many people begin their pregnancy journey in fear of delivering their child and never overcome that fear which begins to influence all aspects of their care and subsequent birth.
Many things can lead to birth trauma in a pregnant person. Many people begin their pregnancy journey in fear of delivering their child and never overcome that fear which begins to influence all aspects of their care and subsequent birth. Others experience trauma through projection from others who have had poor maternal experiences, which undercut the ability to establish a personal connection with their pregnancy or individual birth story.
Intuitive guidance is an invaluable tool to the person entering a new stage in their life’s journey. But, it can be undeniably helpful when understanding your emotional responses to trauma, pregnancy, and overcoming birth trauma. Empathic Intuitive guidance takes the emotional labor out of trying to explain each scenario because you are immediately felt vibrationally and can be directed to the root cause of your trauma’s rather than you spending time trying to convince someone your concerns are worth being heard. All alternative healing methods can support many aspects of your maternal journey. Still, intuitive guidance will allow you to work from your heart center, exactly where you want to be on the journey to and through motherhood.
Birth trauma is not an experience that is easy to navigate, but arming yourself with tips on prevention and learning how you can overcome it will offer your peace and give you more time to be precisely where you want to be, accepting and leaning into your designation as a mother.
Are you navigating the complexities of birth trauma on your journey? Or hoping to prevent it? Schedule a free consult to understand how a short 1:1 intensive in emotional clarity with an empathic intuitive guide can help you to put language to how you are feeling, and to better articulate your feelings and needs to those that are in a position to support you. Start now in securing support, I would love to see if I could help you heal & navigate your journey to birth, or postpartum in a space that makes you feel supported and understood.