What is Birth Trauma & How To Heal

Birth trauma can mean a lot of things, but if you’re a mother whose delivery day was full of stress, danger, bad news, or other complicating factors, you may have experienced it firsthand.

We’re here to help you learn more about this condition, from the causes and signs of birth trauma to ways of dealing with birth-based post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

But let’s slow down and take things back to basics to understand the details of birth trauma and how birth trauma happens.

If you’ve struggled to find materials to better understand birth trauma, there’s an explanation for that.

The definition of birth trauma is fuzzy, and there are actually three overlapping situations that can sometimes be associated with it:

• Physical trauma experienced by the child

• Physical trauma experienced by the mother

• Psychological trauma experienced by the mother

Regardless of the cause, birth trauma can have a negative impact on maternal mental health. For example, birth trauma symptoms can include things like increased anxiety, hypervigilance, poor self-esteem, feelings of guilt and self-blame, and even panic attacks.

Below, we’ll break down every type of birth trauma in a bit more detail.

Physical trauma experienced by the child

This type of birth trauma affects the neonate themselves — the baby. Birth trauma may describe injuries sustained during the childbirth process, the most common of which affect the head, neck, and shoulders and may include things like bone fractures or nerve injuries.

But tiny baby bones that fracture during delivery and other birth injuries are just one of the worries. Other problems include birth defects, which develop in utero prior to delivery, or your baby requiring emergency medical care after birth.

Physical trauma experienced by the mother

This birth trauma category includes injuries and other physical damage that a birth parent sustains during labor and delivery — literal physical trauma. Think things like vaginal tears, hemorrhage, or an emergency cesarean section.

We can really add dozens of specifics to this subcategory, as every mom has her own unique set of battle scars from vaginal deliveries, breech delivery, or cesarean delivery.

And while some complications are certainly more serious than others, any “complication” has the potential to result in some physical trauma.

Psychological trauma experienced by the mother

The third form of birth trauma is the psychological trauma sometimes experienced by a mother while giving birth. These may be associated with physical traumas, but can also include mental and emotional distress that’s associated with the childbirth experience. 

Sometimes, in fact, birth trauma can be a result of how you’re left feeling after delivery — and those wounds can very much exist in the mind alone.

Birth trauma, sometimes defined as any distress or disturbance to the birthing mother during pregnancy, is a trauma experienced by mothers during or immediately after giving birth. 

Birth trauma doesn’t always respect the medical community’s definitions of a “smooth delivery.” Researchers have found that many women — up to 45 percent of them — say they’ve experienced birth trauma.

Researchers have associated many factors as contributing to birth trauma. Some of these risk factors may exist prior to childbirth while others may be associated with the birth and delivery process itself.

Pre-existing factors can include things like:

• A prior history of mental health conditions like depression or anxiety

• A current or past diagnosis of perinatal depression

• A fear of labor pain or the childbirth process in general

• Previous traumatic experiences, such as sexual trauma

• Complications during the pregnancy

• Unplanned pregnancy

• Pressure to meet societal expectations of motherhood

Childbirth-related factors that can lead to birth trauma include:

• Severe pain during labor

• Labor that lasts a long time

• Significant blood loss during birth

• Medical complications for the mother or infant

• NICU care

• Early or unexpected delivery

• C-sections (emergency or otherwise)

• Instrumental vaginal delivery, such as with forceps

• Separation from the baby after birth

• Unexpected disabilities in the newborn

• Stillbirth or death of the infant

• Poor bedside manner of healthcare professionals and other care providers

• A lack of support from family or a partner during labor and delivery

These are just a few examples of what can result in a traumatic birth experience — and remember, there doesn’t need to be a complication for a mother to feel traumatized by the experience of going into labor.

Trauma, for the record, is an emotional response to an event where something bad happens — violence, danger, perceived danger, or a near-death experience. You can experience several types of trauma, and your trauma can result from experiencing a traumatic event or watching someone else experience one. 

And each person’s response can be complex and unique. 

The impact of birth trauma can lead to PTSD. You may see this specifically referred to as birth-related PTSD. Research has found that the prevalence of birth-related PTSD is 4.7%.

The resulting symptoms — which can include intrusive thoughts about the trauma, flashbacks, and avoidant or reactive behaviors — become stuck in a fight or flight response.

But where exactly do we draw a line between trauma and PTSD? For context, the easiest way to understand the difference between trauma and PTSD is the difference in duration and intensity of symptoms.

PTSD is what happens when the trauma continues to recur in the mind of the person, in the form of things like flashbacks and uncontrollable feelings that make it seem like it’s happening all over again. This reliving of the traumatic event affects your ability to function normally in day-to-day activity and responsibilities. 

Research also shows that a mother who experiences childbirth trauma may be at risk of other mental health problems. For example, experiencing birth trauma increases the risk of developing postpartum depression.

Theoretically, if signs are detected that the mother-to-be has previously experienced trauma or other mental health disorders, then treatment for birth trauma can actually be started before delivery has even occurred. For this to become a widespread practice,  there would need to be substantial improvements to the education of the healthcare provider community, birth coaches, and other pregnancy-related professionals.

In the meantime — and for women who have already experienced a traumatic birth — avoiding the sense that something may be wrong is not a strategy. Avoidance only allows symptoms of trauma and PTSD to begin to flourish and take hold.

Instead, therapeutic interventions are your best option if symptoms are present. 

There’s no official recommendation of how to treat birth trauma from resources like the National Institutes of Health. However, it’s likely that treatment will include many of the interventions used to treat PTSD, such as psychotherapy and medications.

For example, birth trauma counseling may include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is also often used for PTSD. It’s generally agreed that CBT can help patients deal with the symptoms of reliving or experiencing intrusive thoughts about the trauma.

Another type of therapy that appears promising for birth-related PTSD is called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). This is a type of therapy for PTSD that aims to reduce symptoms by having you do specific eye movement while you’re recalling a traumatic experience.

Likewise, medications, including antidepressants — specifically, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors — may be effective for treating symptoms, but women who are currently breastfeeding should speak with their healthcare provider before starting a course of antidepressant medication.

Everyone’s birth experience is different. And if you feel as if you’ve experienced a traumatic childbirth, it’s important to do one thing in particular: allow yourself to call the event a trauma. 

Once you’ve validated your experience, it’s time to seek support and treatment. Consult with a mental health professional, join a support group, tell your birth stories, and, most of all, have compassion for yourself. 

Healing from trauma of any kind is about validation, support and love, and self-care. That goes doubly for birth trauma. You need all of those things — you deserve all of those things — to overcome the experience. 

New mothers respond to birth trauma differently. Each will exhibit their own signs of birth trauma (and PTSD if it evolves), so finding the right mental health professional to support you and help work through those symptoms is key to success.

Remember: While being a mom is an incredible and rewarding experience, we don’t always get there without struggles. And we don’t get anywhere without addressing them.