Birth Trauma therapist Madison

Did your labor and delivery experience feel scary, out of control or feel like it happened to you rather than you were a part of it?

Birth trauma is simply defined as experiencing distress during or after a birth. This can be physical or emotional.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health up to 45 % of new moms may experience birth trauma.

If you experienced a birth trauma you may notice:

-difficulty being in the present, sometimes this can look like not bonding with your baby or feeling much joy around parenthood

-avoiding things or places that you associate with the birth. This could be the hospital, avoiding other pregnant moms, avoiding talking about pregnancy or giving birth.

-a reexperiencing of the event. This could be nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive memories. This could also be somatic rexperiencing which could look like increased heart rate, feeling panicked or a loss of control.

-hypervigelance. This could look like on edge, irritable, jumpy, reactive. Worry that something bad will happen to you or your baby.

-Feeling low, feeling guilt like what happened is your fault.

While not everyone that experiences birth trauma has PTSD, everyone who experiences birth trauma can benefit from therapy.

Birth trauma can result in feelings of sadness, isolation, anxiety, depression. It can lead to difficulty in bonding with baby. Birth trauma can lead to lack of intimacy, problems with relationship. It can impact decision making for future pregnancies.

Therapy for birth trauma can help you to integrate your experience so that it becomes a memory rather than it feel like it is currently happening, that it can feel more neutral and less physically charged, that you can have feelings around it but it the feelings aren’t so overhwelming. For more information on birth trauma and how working with a therapist Madison can help contact Julie at Kull Counseling here.