What is birth trauma?

I often get the question, “What is birth trauma?” and to be honest it’s kind of a hard question to answer.  Technically Birth trauma refers to any distressing event that happened during labor, delivery, and/or the first few weeks of postpartum. But even that definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which makes sense because Trauma is subjective, meaning the mom or the non-birthing partner decides whether or not it was traumatic for them.  From the moment we get the positive pregnancy test (and even our journeys up to that point) to everything that follows can differ for every person, and every pregnancy.  When it comes time to giving birth we know one thing, birth is unpredictable! For some, child birth is an amazing experience and for others it can be really HARD, traumatic and/or heartbreaking. For some, such as myself, it can be all of those things.

Your birth story does not need to be complicated or life-threatening to be considered traumatic.  Trauma is a nuanced subjective experience, as I said before the mom or the non-birthing partner decides whether or not it was traumatic for them.  Everyone’s story is different and there are no boxes to check to decide if a birth was truly a traumatic experience.  When we think about birth trauma it’s not about what happened, it’s about the way it feels. When our ability to cope becomes overwhelming, our brains can encode those experiences as traumatic.  It doesn’t have be life-threatening or chaotic, it just needs to be perceived by our brain as a distressing event.

All of that said, here are some events that are commonly referred to as birth trauma:

·      Unplanned or emergency c-section

·      Real {or perceived} threat of harm to mom or baby

·      Feeling a lack of control or helplessness

·      Unhelpful {rude or upsetting} comments made by medical professionals, visitors, or anyone present during labor and delivery

·      Feeling like your providers didn’t communicate well with you during labor/delivery

·      Very short {or long} labor

·      Pregnancy and/or infant loss

·      Having to be physically restrained during labor/delivery

·      Baby staying in the NICU

·      Severe complications due to birth {Postpartum hemorrhage, preeclampsia, 3rd or 4th degree tearing, unplanned hysterectomy, etc.}

·      Previous trauma

·      Disappointment about one’s birth or early postpartum experience

·      Witnessing the pain and/or helplessness of your birthing partner

 If any of these are true for you, or you’ve experienced a different distressing event in this time period, know you are not alone! Some studies found that 1 in 3 women have experienced some type of birth trauma in their lifetime.  Also know you don’t have to walk through this alone. I want to encourage you to talk to someone you trust, a friend or family member, and if needed talk to a mental health professional.  You can heal from this pain, and my hope for you is that you are able heal from this trauma and put it in the past in a meaningful way.