Birth Trauma Therapy
Birth Trauma therapy is specifically designed to help birthing people cope with the aftermath of a traumatic pregnancy or birth experience.
Imani’s Light offers birth trauma therapy for BIPOC parents in Washington State.
- Are you searching for healing after a traumatic birth?
- Do you find that even though you want to connect with your baby and enjoy parenthood, that distressing memories from your birth keep coming up and you don’t know how to manage the feelings they bring?
- Have you been struggling with anxiety, depression, or sleep issues?
You may be experiencing symptoms of birth trauma, and you are not alone.
The term birth trauma can evoke a host of emotions because we can’t see physical scars to seeingly justify the pain. But, the emotional, mental, and physical effects from a traumatic birth are real. They can often be distressing and come out of nowhere. Birth trauma is not just about what happened during a labor and birth, it is about the lasting effects it has on the birthing person afterwards.
You don’t have to walk this path alone.
There are options to help you navigate your traumatic birth and find healing.
What is Birth Trauma?
Birth trauma refers to the physical, emotional, or psychological distress that occurs as a result of a difficult or traumatic birthing experience. This can include feelings of fear, powerlessness, and helplessness. The distress can occur alongside flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. It is important to note that while it is called birth trauma, it can happen throughout your pregnancy and is not always an isolated incident.
Let’s look at a birth scenario for an example. See if anything resonates:
You have been so excited throughout your pregnancy for the day you get to meet your baby. You picked your favorite care provider, took the childbirth education course, made a birth plan, and eagerly awaited your labor.
You wake up with some twinges that tell you today is the day you get to meet your baby. Fast forward to the moment your baby is placed in your arms. As you gaze down at your baby, your eyes are filled with tears that are a mix of happiness, alongside disbelief, confusion, and sadness from the experience you just had. Things you hoped and planned for your birth vanished before your eyes. Your dreams of a beautiful birth were shattered.
You hear people say, “At least you have a healthy baby,” when you try to explain the pain you feel weeks later, so you stuff those feelings down. You keep questioning what you did wrong and why you weren’t listened to. And you can’t shake the instant replay of your birth that seems to be on a constant loop day in and day out.
This is Birth Trauma.
Research from Prevention and Treatment of Traumatic Childbirth (PATTCh) indicates that between 25-35% of birthing people consider their childbirth experience to be traumatic or disempowering. For BIPOC birthing people, those numbers are exponentially higher and are often not reported or discussed.
The above story may only be a snippet of what you experienced. Some other scenarios may include the following:
- Experiencing complications during your labor
- Needing a medical intervention such as forceps, vacuum delivery, or an unplanned c-section
- Baby needing medical attention after delivery, including resuscitation, prematurity, or a NICU stay
- Difficulty being able to advocate for yourself or your baby
- Being pressured into medical decisions
- Microaggressions or blatant racism towards yourself or your partner during labor.
It is completely normal to feel disappointed by a change in plans for your pregnancy or birth. However, birth trauma is the emotions the birthing parent experiences after the dust settles.
What does birth trauma feel like?
Symptoms of birth trauma can show up immediately after the experience but can show up well into your postpartum journey or linger for years after your birth experience. These feelings can come with a sense of shame, numbness, bitterness, sadness, anger, hopelessness, doubt, fear, or a range of other emotions. For many birthing people, birth trauma is missed by their care providers and loved ones because there are no physical scars, and there’s a “happy healthy baby.” Let me be clear. Those things can be true, and you can still have experienced a traumatic birth.
While it can be difficult for you to pinpoint the exact feelings, you may be experiencing a combination of the following after your pregnancy or birth:
- Replaying the events of your birth in your mind and feeling like you are reliving them
- Overwhelming physical distress
- Feeling like you failed in some way
- Flashbacks
- Nightmares
- Avoiding talking about anything that reminds you of your birthing experience
- Frequently irritable or having anger outbursts
- Difficulty caring for or bonding with your newborn
- Intrusive thoughts about your birthing experience
- Difficulties sleeping
- Hyper-alert or feeling on edge
- Intense and prolonged anxiety when you think about your birth
After a traumatic birth, you may feel as though you were robbed of the experiences you have heard from your friends or watched in a movie. I want to affirm that everything that you are feeling is valid. You are not a bad parent because you are experiencing these feelings. What happened to you was life-changing. I want to assure you that birth trauma therapy can help you process your experience, recover and heal.
How can therapy for a traumatic birth help?
We work together to create a space where you feel safe to explore your birth experience without judgment. Birth trauma therapy can help you create a coping “toolbox” full of skills to help you manage triggers as they show up. A traumatic birth can leave you feeling detached from your body, so we will work to heal the mind-body connection so that you can feel safe in your body again.
We offer online birth trauma therapy for residents of Washington state.
You can now get help from a grief & trauma therapist from the comfort of your home.
Cognitive Processing and EMDR Therapies for Birth Trauma
For many birthing people, in the first few days to weeks after a birth, they are able “debrief” it with their care provider, partner, or Doula. This is can be an important part of the birthing experience to process feelings, fill in gaps from the labor, or ask questions about the fuzzy parts of your labor. After a traumatic birth, this debrief can feel painful, or the birthing person may shy away from sharing how they truly felt about their birth.
Birth trauma therapy is different.
At Imani’s Light, we offer a number of different therapeutic approaches; however, we typically use Cognitive Processing Therapy or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for birth trauma.
Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)
Cognitive processing therapy (CPT) is a therapy focused on helping people who have experienced trauma. CPT for birth trauma provides information on PTSD and helps birthing people confront unpleasant memories & thoughts associated with their traumatic birth.
CPT for birth trauma consists of 12 weekly sessions, that address thoughts and emotions associated with the birth to help change negative and unhelpful thoughts associated with PTSD and trauma.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy that reprocesses a traumatic experience(s) that was not fully processed to desensitize the memory. EMDR helps to address distressing body sensations, negative beliefs, images/flashbacks, smells, sounds, and other sensations associated with the memory.
EMDR therapy has 8 different phases, lasting between 8-12 sessions, that change the way the memories of your traumatic birth reside in your mind. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to reprocess those memories allowing them to no longer be triggering when thinking of the birth or similar incidents.
Your traumatic birth does not have to define you, your parenting journey, or your future fertility plans. Birth trauma therapy at Imani’s Light can help bring hope and light by providing a safe and supportive space to process and heal from your birth experience.
Imani's Light Birth Trauma Therapy
Imani’s Light provides online birth trauma therapy all over Washington State. With online birth trauma therapy, you can process your grief in the safety and comfort of your own home using a secure telehealth platform to protect your privacy and maintain confidentiality.
Imani’s Light offers online therapy for BIPOC people who have had a traumatic birth all across Washington State, including Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, West Seattle, Pasco, Kennewick, Richland, Western Washington, Eastern Washington, and everwhere in between.
If you live in Washington state, and you are ready to start birth trauma therapy, I offer a free 15-minute consultation to see if we are a good fit for your therapeutic goals. Please feel free to browse the website, explore the therapy services I offer, and check out the rates for therapy.
