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Birth & Perinatal Trauma
Counselling for birth trauma and perinatal trauma in Surrey and BC
Healing from a difficult prenatal, birth, or postpartum experience
EMPOWER YOUR STORY
RESTORE SAFETY
"I can be changed by what happened to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it."
- Maya Angelou -
Not everyone looks back on their pregnancy, birth story, or postpartum period with happy memories. If you've had a distressing experience - or prolonged exposure to stressors during this time - wherein you felt your (or a loved one's) physical, psychological, or emotional safety was threatened - you may be experiencing the effects of trauma.
Trauma can make you question all you know about the world, the people around you, and yourself. With help, you can regain a sense of safety, trust, connection, and calm.
Joy in life and comfort in your relationships can be yours again.
WHAT IS
PERINATAL TRAUMA?
Perinatal trauma refers to psychological, physiological, and emotional distress responses that can arise as result of experiencing or witnessing an adverse situation/event during the prenatal period, childbirth, or postpartum experience.
Both birthing persons and non-birthing persons therefore, can be impacted.
What is traumatic for you, may not be for someone else and that is why helpers in the field have come to understand it to be a subjective experience. In the words of perinatal researcher and professor Cheryl Tatano Beck, trauma "is in the eye of the beholder"
- meaning you define what is traumatic.
Perinatal Trauma can stem from such experiences as:
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pregnancy, health, or birthing complications
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miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss
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medical procedures
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unexpected processes or outcomes
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extreme physical pain or injury
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disempowering or discriminatory interactions with medical care professionals
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lack of safe supports, feeling alone and fearful
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real or perceived risk to mother or infant's life
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infant health complications or diagnosis, NICU stay
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challenges in the postpartum period
Did you know?
While research to date has been challenged by a lack of standard definition of perinatal and birth trauma, as well as variances from country-to-country, some research has reported that 1 in 3 birthing people identify feeling traumatized by their birth experience, while other research references 45% of women reporting an experience of birth trauma.
SIGNS/SYMPTOMS OF
PERINATAL POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PPTSD)
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Avoidance: wanting to avoid direct and in-direct reminders of the event; avoiding follow up medical care appts
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Flashbacks, re-experiencing, and nightmares: Intrusive memories, thoughts, feelings and images that make one feel as though they are re-experiencing the traumatic event
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Hyperarousal: feeling on-alert and on-edge, irritable, having sleep difficulty, over-active startle response
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Negative mood and cognition: Challenges with self-blame, doubt, intrusive thoughts, low mood, large-scale emotions
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Anxiety, panic and/or emotional numbing: experiencing symptoms that may fluctuate between high-arousal (heart palpitations, sweating, etc) and low-arousal (emotionally flat, detached from others and self)
For many birthing persons and partners, the intense physical and emotional symptoms common after a stressful event are related to Post-traumatic Stress (PTS). As such, these normal stress responses will be relatively short-lived and feel better with time, care from others, and return to routine.
For others, a traumatic experience may place them at risk of developing further anxiety, panic and depression. Some may develop symptoms that are longer lasting, more intense and more disruptive, meeting the criteria for Perinatal Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. PPSTD often requires support to resolve and can be treated with evidence-based therapies including CBT, EMDR, IPT and ERP. Some symptoms, as noted by Postpartum Support International include:
How Trauma Therapy Can Help
Here are just a few of the ways therapy can help heal Perinatal, Childbirth, and Reproductive Trauma
01
Improve emotional regulation
After trauma, it can feel as though you are being hyjacked by responses that are out of your control. Understanding how trauma affects your brain, body, and emotions is a key step to reducing fear and confusion after a traumatic event. We work together to regulate these responses and find places of safety, both inside and outside of you.
02
Reduce the impact of triggers
Learning to identify thoughts, feelings, people, places, etc. that trigger strong emotional and physical reactions is an important part of addressing trauma, as often feeling triggered (or anticipation of this) will affect your behaviour. This understanding allows us to explore and try out new responses that could work better for you. Over time, these new responses reduce fear and avoidance. New possibilities not only foster hope, but also let a little more life in.
03
Process and empower your story
Often stories of perinatal trauma involve a sense of powerlessness and feeling very alone. It makes sense then that it can feel scary to share about what happened. Therapy can help you share and process what happened and how you've been impacted in a way that feels safe, supported, and empowered. This is not always with words. Often, the act of having a safe person accompany you in this story, inherently changes how it feels.
05
Re-connect to self and others
Trauma has a way of disconnecting us from self and others, often when this is what we need most. This can be incredibly difficult for a perinatal parent whose infant relies on this connection for their growth and well-being. Parents impacted by trauma can feel immense loss and guilt if their parenting capacity is compromised by their symptoms. Therapy can help you re-connect with yourself so that you can be more fully present, grounded, and available to build attachment with your little one. This attachment can be healing for both parties.
04
Promote supportive habits
Perinatal trauma can disrupt a lot - both internally and externally. In therapy, we work to help you begin, or continue with, healthy habits and coping strategies to support your healing and growth. This may include self-care routines, exercise, working on sleep hygiene, connecting with others, adjusting work-life balance, setting boundaries, etc.
06
Restore a sense of safety
Trauma is known for affecting our sense of safety and trust with ourselves, others, and in the world. Therapy can help to restore and rebuild feelings of safety within yourself and the outside world. Finding your voice, establishing healthy boundaries, re-connecting with your body, and building safe spaces with supportive partners and people, are just some of the ways this may be done.
