For my first birth I think I coped better with it due to knowing what to expect and understanding what was happening at each stage.
For my second birth I think if I had known about back to back labour and how to handle them differently from a normal labour it would have been easier to cope with, and I'm doing a huge amount of prep in that direction this time because I expect to have a fairly high chance of it happening again. But to be perfectly honest, I did have a book which explained all about it. I didn't read that far into it. I probably wouldn't have taken it in if I had, because it sounded like back to back labours are really rare and I wouldn't have assumed it was helpful to me. I skip over the c-section parts of birth books as well. It's probably unwise to do this in case I do end up with a c-section, but I'm just going with the theory that if that happens it will either be too fast for me to process what is happening anyway and/or the staff will be able to inform me and tell me what is happening/what they are doing and so I'll just deal with it if it happens.
I think it's so hard to prepare for birth in advance. It can be helpful to understand the birth process/stages of labour so that you have a sense of where you're at and what is happening. But that's not always going to be enough to prevent birth trauma. Some things that happen during birth simply are traumatic and you can't really prepare for that kind of thing. Birth is one of the riskiest things most people will ever do (both your own and having your own children). Sometimes you're going to get into a scenario where something drastic has to be done for either the mum's or baby's safety. Best practice in that scenario is most likely just to do it and deal with the emotional fallout later. I don't think you can prepare for that kind of scenario and I don't know whether it's helpful to try - you just end up with lots and lots of horror stories, which is surely just going to increase anxiety.
Birth disappointment, where you have planned a "natural birth" and end up with some kind of intervention and experience feelings of failure, I think we could prepare mums better for this. I don't think birth preparation programs which are focused entirely on how much less risky it is to give birth vaginally, all the benefits of a natural labour, the risks of epidural/elective section etc are helpful at all. Tools to cope with a natural labour, yes. But tools to cope with changes of plan are important too. It's about empowering and educating mums (and mums to be) about the balance of risks and understanding when it tips and when it is a blessing to have another option. For example we do not want to use something like forceps routinely - we know that would not improve outcomes, it would probably cause problems. But if your baby is stuck and cannot come down the birth canal by themselves, then it's extremely fortunate that we do have options like forceps. In years gone by that would have simply been a scenario where mother and baby died. Likewise, if you are in a situation where labour needs to start ASAP, it's very helpful that we have the option of induction. Absolutely not a failure - yet many mums do feel this way (especially if the induction does not get going).
But the amount of preparation you can do for this kind of thing is minimal, because it needs to be an active and informed discussion between the pregnant woman and her care provider, and that might be the area which needs to change. I think it would be helpful to have preparation along the lines of these are some common tools that are used in labour if things are not going to plan and when/why/how they are used. Also, how to have a discussion about the risks/benefits/alternatives (I was taught BRAIN at antenatal classes, which I found very helpful).