When Birth Stays With You.

Birth Trauma: A Gentle Conversation.

So I wanted to hone in today specifically on birth trauma. Now this is a topic that is not commonly discussed but one that I feel is impacting many women.

First of all, I'm not referring to your everyday births, although birth is an overwhelming and painful experience — I know that first hand. I am specifically talking about birth experiences where there was an extensive series of medical interventions, and where women felt all their choices had been taken away and they were left with a burden of painful feelings — powerlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

So when someone experiences birth in a traumatic way, a memory of the trauma gets encoded in the part of the brain called the amygdala.
What also gets encoded is the emotional response and the body's reaction to what happened, and this response stays there encoded in the brain for life — the anxiety, the fear, the stress, the overwhelming feelings, along with often physical pain as well.

What this means is:
Every time you are reminded by anything even remotely similar to the birth (there could be a variety of triggers, for example — hearing an ambulance, someone touching you, seeing a hospital, opening your legs…) the amygdala, a part of the brain, signals an alarm response and you experience that same emotional overwhelming response you experienced during the traumatic birth.

You may be wondering what birth trauma symptoms look and feel like?

You could be:

• Really avoidant of birth-related topics
  

• Finding that sex feels painful in a protective way, and feeling scared to be touched
  

• Feeling really disconnected from your emotions or stuck in feelings like isolation, frustration, and guilt
  

• Finding it difficult to talk about the experience without becoming distressed
  

• Repeatedly reliving the birth experience through vivid memories, nightmares, or overwhelming thoughts
  

• Struggling to conceive and feeling it may be connected to trauma and fear held in the body from your first birth
  

First of all, you are not alone and you don't need to continue to find ways to manage these symptoms.

Neuroscience now makes it possible to rewire the brain's response to traumatic experiences — what this means is you’ll still actually remember the event, but the intense emotional and often physical pain and stress it caused are removed.

Havening: A Birth Trauma: A Gentle Conversation

So I wanted to hone in today specifically on birth trauma. Now this is a topic that is not commonly discussed but one that I feel is impacting many women.

First of all, I'm not referring to your everyday births, although birth is an overwhelming and painful experience — I know that first hand. I am specifically talking about birth experiences where there was an extensive series of medical interventions, and where women felt all their choices had been taken away and they were left with a burden of painful feelings — powerlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

So when someone experiences birth in a traumatic way, a memory of the trauma gets encoded in the part of the brain called the amygdala.
What also gets encoded is the emotional response and the body's reaction to what happened, and this response stays there encoded in the brain for life — the anxiety, the fear, the stress, the overwhelming feelings, along with often physical pain as well.

What this means is:
Every time you are reminded by anything even remotely similar to the birth (there could be a variety of triggers, for example — hearing an ambulance, someone touching you, seeing a hospital, opening your legs…) the amygdala, a part of the brain, signals an alarm response and you experience that same emotional overwhelming response you experienced during the traumatic birth.

You may be wondering what birth trauma symptoms look and feel like?

You could be:

• Really avoidant of birth-related topics
  

• Finding that sex feels painful in a protective way, and feeling scared to be touched
  

• Feeling really disconnected from your emotions or stuck in feelings like isolation, frustration, and guilt
  

• Finding it difficult to talk about the experience without becoming distressed
  

• Repeatedly reliving the birth experience through vivid memories, nightmares, or overwhelming thoughts
  

• Struggling to conceive and feeling it may be connected to trauma and fear held in the body from your first birth

If you resonate with any or all of these, first of all you are not alone and you don't need to continue to find ways to manage these symptoms.

Neuroscience now makes it possible to rewire the brain's response to traumatic experiences — what this means is you’ll still actually remember the event, but the intense emotional and often physical pain and stress it caused are removed.

Havening: A gentle and effective Healing Tool

Havening is really a gentle and effective healing tool, offering a calm yet profound solution to birth trauma.

By using specific soothing touch techniques, Havening helps rewire the brain's response to trauma. While you’ll still actually remember the event, the intense emotional pain and stress it caused are removed. Often, in just 30 to 40 minutes, it can bring rapid and noticeable changes, allowing clients to move from emotional distress to astonishment as they recall their birth experience without the overwhelming pain.

What I see during the end is a volcano of emotions coming up and out — and it's quite amazing to watch these women and the relief they feel after, to finally feel like they have been supported and held in this safe space to be able to process such a painful experience.

If you would like any more information on this topic or how the Havening Techniques can help, please reach out — I would love to hear from you and support you with these life changing practices.