This wasn’t the plan.
It wasn’t supposed to go like that was it? You had your plan and ideas as to how you’d like your birth to be, you did everything right during your pregnancy, and yet for reasons that may or may not be clear, when it came to delivering your baby, things didn’t go to plan. Far from it in fact. For some women and men, birth can be traumatic.
Factors associated with a traumatic birth.
The literature points to nine factors associated with birth trauma:
If you encountered one or more of the above, it may well be that you experience your delivery as having been traumatic. In many cases, the brain is able to make sense of the event(s) on its own and within 4 weeks you’re able to look back at the event without intense negative emotion. In other cases, people do not return to normal functioning within a month and professional support is needed to help people get back on track.
Common symptoms of PTSD following childbirth (birth trauma) include:
• Flashbacks, vivid memories, nightmares
• Avoiding reminders of the birth, for example not looking at photos of that time, avoiding talking about what happened and not going to the same hospital for checkups.
• Not being able to recall aspects of the delivery
• Being hypervigilant, irritable, easily startled
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• Difficulty concentrating
Women and Men.
I routinely see women and men who have experienced birth trauma. Don’t forget that witnessing a traumatic event also constitutes a trauma and many men express feeling helpless and powerless as they witness the events affecting their wife and child. These beliefs fuel PTSD. Often men feel there is no time for their PTSD symptoms as they focus their attention on supporting their wife and adjusting to a new baby. However, if symptoms of PTSD haven’t gone away in 4 weeks or are particularly severe, it is really important to seek professional support from a psychologist who specializes in birth trauma and PTSD.
Psychological treatment for PTSD after childbirth.
International guidelines point to Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as the treatments of choice when it comes to PTSD. Supportive counseling that does not focus on the memories directly is actively discouraged by the scientific literature in treating PTSD. The rationale is that effective treatment relies on the emotional processing of the memory, which does not form part of general CBT and other models of counseling approaches.
My personal reflections.
Working with men and women in the perinatal period (i.e. during and after pregnancy) is an area of specialism for me, and so too is treating people with trauma and PTSD. Working with birth trauma combines my two areas of specialty in a way that is deeply rewarding.
Sometimes I see people fairly soon after their birth and gain great professional and personal satisfaction from helping them heal quickly so they can focus again on enjoying their baby. On other occasions people wait years before coming to see me, sometimes spurred on by the wish to have another baby yet fearful due to PTSD symptoms associated with the previous birth. And sometimes, it is only years later that they realise that they are still affected by what happened, reflecting on their over-protectiveness, short fuse and anxiety.
The sooner you’re able to get the right treatment for birth trauma, the sooner you and your family can heal. It’s never too late.
Dr. Marie Thompson, Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Director, Vivamus.