Dealing with trauma after a C-section birth
As part of C-section Awareness Month, here is a another fantastic guest post from Tracy Law, founder of Birth Trauma Resolution Brighton and Perinatal Trauma Practitioner.
Did having a C-section mean a change of your birth plan? Has your birth left you feeling traumatised?
➡️ Did the birth you planned for go off course?
➡️ How has this left you feeling?
➡️ Have you been told all that matters is that you have a healthy baby?
➡️ How can you move forward when you still feel traumatised?
A caesarean birth doesn’t make you less of a woman or mother, and it is vital that women birth with dignity, power, and honour, whether that is vaginally or via a caesarean section. The right support is crucial however you birth.
But it’s evident many are left deeply traumatised by the way their birth went and emerge through their caesarean birth feeling like their body failed in some way.
This may be due to a number of reasons - a lack of control and consent, or a lack of clear communication received in an emergency situation.
I am often told that there was no communication around what was happening when their babies heart beat dropped or the emergency buzzer went off and the room filled with people.
Or when rushed to theatre, there were moments when they feared for their baby’s life or their own!!
Understanding what happens in the moment of trauma is vital to recovery as a lot of birthing people feel such guilt or feel their body failed in some way.
During a traumatic event like the one described above, the survival brain takes over and the critical, logical thinking and language brain goes offline.
During trauma, the body is flooded with cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline and the autonomic nervous system, which is designed to protect and keep you safe in unsafe or threatening situations, is turned ON automatically (without your conscious control).
To keep you safe your body has three choices. The options are: to take flight (get away), to fight (defend yourself) and, if these options are not available, to freeze (shut down, numb out or disassociate).
If unable to self regulate and self soothe, the survival and autonomic nervous systems can be stuck ON and the body can hold the trauma long after the event has passed. Your nervous system needs to heal and find harmony and connection again.
The stored up survival stress and freeze response may make you want to hide and hibernate. Your thoughts may reflect your nervous system state making you feel tense, angry or jittery. You may experience tightness in the chest, throat or have stomach and digestive problems.
Speaking and receiving a debrief, away from the hospital, by someone trauma informed is vital. So you can have a timeline of what happened. Using grounding techniques, breathing and relaxation, and other tools can help you self regulate again.
Seeing a birth trauma specialist or someone trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) or trauma informed CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) can help you process your traumatic experience and deal with feelings of disappointment and distress.
Treatment will help to process the strong negative emotions attached to the traumatic memory.
It can take immense courage to admit that you’re struggling, and even more courage to seek help. Not only is a healthy baby important but so is a healthy mummy.
Every birth counts. You count.
If you or someone you know is struggling with trauma post birth please get in touch with Perinatal Trauma Practitioner and founder of Birth Trauma Resolution Brighton, Tracy Law,
