Let us not forget the birth partners or other support people who are in the room during a traumatic event. “It’s the current imprint of that pain, horror, and fear living inside people.” This can be translated to trauma living inside our bodies and experiencing it as if it is happening right now. It is an involuntary brain response that cannot be cured by someone telling you to “pull yourself together” or “focus on the good things, like your baby.”Īccording to Bessel van der Kolk, MD, one of the leading researchers in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, “Trauma is not the story of something that happened back then,” he adds. How a parent PERCEIVED themselves being treated, or how their partner was treated makes more of an impact on whether a parent will suffer from postpartum PTSD than any other thing. The biggest indicators of birth trauma are the level of obstetric interventions and the perception of care. PTSD related to a birth event is an involuntary response from the brain. This can include things like altering your route to avoid driving past the location of your birth, avoiding certain smells, or removing yourself from a room when someone is telling their own birth story. Being hypervigilant about avoiding reminders of the trauma.There might even be parts of the experience you simply cannot remember. Maybe even blaming yourself or feeling guilty about the things that happened to you. Negative thoughts and feelings, like feeling down and depressed, generally.Not being able to sleep well and having problems concentrating also fall under this primary symptom. Arousing and reactive symptoms, such as being constantly on guard, prepared for anything bad to happen that makes you irritable, jumpy, and highly alert.Intrusive thoughts, including reliving the birth event through nightmares, involuntary memories, or flashbacks, causing you to feel panicked, stressed, or anxious.PTSD has four main symptoms as explained by the American Psychiatric Association: It is important to note that trauma lies with the person who experienced it or witnessed it, and it is not necessary for anyone else to perceive the event as traumatic at all. However, PTSD can happen to anyone after any traumatic event. It is common for people to confuse the term PTSD as something only military service members can get from war-related experiences, because the identification of the disorder first appeared in soldiers after the Vietnam War. It may also apply to parents who have some, but not all, of the symptoms required to diagnose PTSD. It is also common to have birth trauma AND postpartum depression, so treating both, with medical support, might be part of the healing process.īirth trauma is a simple way to say PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after birth. Vaginal birth isn’t always perfect and beautiful, and Cesareans aren’t always traumatic and heartbreaking.īut what does birth trauma ACTUALLY mean? How do you know if you have trauma, PTSD, depression, anxiety, or just the plain old baby blues?īirth trauma and postpartum depression share some of the same symptoms but, because they are completely different from each other, they need to be treated differently as well. It can be traumatic and healing and full of all sorts of emotions, both positive and negative, that can exist in the same space at the same time. It is perfectly beautiful and incredibly messy. What is birth trauma?īirth is unpredictable. Originally published October 3, 2018, this article was updated and republished on April 27, 2020. If you feel that you are struggling with trauma right now, please reach out to someone you can trust or jump ahead to the resources listed below. This article talks about how to identify, heal, and cope with birth trauma. There are many births, both vaginal and Cesarean, that leave parents struggling with trauma or PTSD. It is easy to shrug things off and excuse them as hormones, baby-blues, or any number of reasons. It is common for parents to underestimate birth-related trauma because they are in the postpartum period. And if you have a repeat Cesarean, it might just well be the most empowering experience you will have.Īs a doula and educator who advocates against unnecessary C-sections, you’d think that contradicts everything I stand for. Here it goes: just because you have a VBAC doesn’t mean it will be perfect - you can still experience lasting effects of birth trauma. We want to talk about something that may be a little sensitive for some.
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