Maybe I was traumatised by childbirth after all

[nomoreminibreaks]

I was just watching OBEM with the difficult forceps delivery and found myself overwhelmed. I'm not normally someone who cries much.

I had a birth that has been described by others as 'traumatic' (induced, waters broken, 4 hours pushing, ventouse, forceps, 1.5 litre blood loss) but have never thought of it as traumatic. As far as I see it we both survived and are healthy and happy (though I still have problems with my coccyx from the long second stage). I also had mild PND but consider myself happy now.

But my reaction to watching OBEM really surprised me and I'm wondering if I have blocked something out.

Don't really know what I'm asking. Has anyone else experienced this?

I know exactly what you mean. Had PND feel happy now etc. Saw a baby in an incubator wheeled past me yesterday and burst into tears completely out of the blue. I struggled with the same question and came to the conclusion that it was ok and normal to feel upset but honestly, I don't know. I'm watching with interest to see if anyone can enlighten me too!

I totally froze and the blood drained from my face when I opened the cupboard the other week to find DH had bought the SAME cereal bars as I'd had in labour 11 months earlier. There's a TV show which used to be my favourite I can no longer watch - we had attempted to watch it in the early stages. The album that was playing in the delivery room freaks me out now. I can't listen. All this, and DD's birth was apparently 'normal' with no interventions, just gas and air, nice relaxed water birth (to everyone else!). It was just v-e-r-y long, (38 hours) and OK, looking back we were probably not in any real danger at all, but when I was sent home in agony after 26 hours and only 1cm dilated, it felt to me like I was going home to die and they didn't care. (Only to be rushed in in an ambulance later with blood loss). I know this all sounds very silly and dramatic, but that was how I felt at the time and it honestly took 5 months to get over the flashbacks - I know I suffered from PND at the time - yep, happy now - but my HV's English wasn't very good at all and I guess I swallowed it all up for fear they'd take my baby away. I shudder to think about those dark days now. Anyway, my point is childbirth can be flippin' traumatic at the best of times, and some of us get missed. Some of us are more private when it comes to talking about feelings with strangers and some of us are just really, really good at covering it all up. Ha! Still bitter. Can you tell?

Still can't bear to watch One Born... Xxx

These are ringing some bells! I had a great HV but our primary concern was DS' colic and that was enough of a struggle. I was also very keen to be able to say 'I had PND' rather than 'I have PND' so I could get on with things and no one would get bored of me being depressed. I just felt I couldn't cope with that AND a colicky baby at the same time do decided I was a better.

Thing is, what are you supposed to do about this? Talk to someone or wait for it to go away? I'm also freaked out by the idea of getting pregnant again in the future without having dealt with it in case I can't cope with the idea of giving birth again.

I think denial or delayed reaction to childbirth trauma is more common than people think.

I also think that how 'good' a birth was is subjective- one woman's nightmare is another's success.

As a recently traumatised birther...16 days ago recent...and mine by all accounts wasn't that bad...yes, anything will bring it back.
Oddly, I saw an ambulance in town the other day and I had hideous flashes of when I was rushed in at 31wks with contractions and agony (UTI and constipation)...which hasn't happened before...so I'm assuming the birth on top of that's done something mental to me.
If you are scared/traumatised/reliving previous births, you can ask for a senior MW/consultant to sit with you and go through the HOSPITAL version of your notes, for a debriefing...it's helped a couple of people I know prepare for second babies after frankly, a lot worse experiences than me, so it's something I'll be looking into when me and LO are in a better routine as I really don't remember clearly a lot of it and most of it makes me want to cry...on top of what is blatantly PND.
Def. talk to someone. GP/HV team/pet cat/anyone - preferably someone with experience . If nothing else, write it all down, so when you do feel able to talk to someone (or even if you can't talk to them directly, give them the writings), so they can get an idea of what's going on. Keep at it too. Keep telling them there's an issue until someone listens.

Oh, I'm a good talker/typer/brutally honest type that is shit at actually allowing herself to FEEL stuff...but I know depression and I know me, and this is it...the PTSD is new and not at all exciting...could do without it aswell.

Sometimes trauma is stored in the body in a way which is expressed physically rather than emotionally.
Criteria for PTSD allow for both type of symptoms :
4.Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
5.Physiologic reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
(see here).
I'm not saying in anyway you have PTSD, as everyone gets some of the same reactions after an overwhelming event, which childbirth is, whether it's good or bad overall. It's just that an uncontrollable emotional or physical reaction to a reminder of an event is a normal thing. The brain protects itself by storing up the original reactions and feelings out of our reach. A strong reminder breaks through defences.
Psychological theories suggest that these breakthrough reactions or memories help our minds process the event a little bit more each time until it has become less upsetting for us.
(Sorry for academic response - am a researcher in PTSD research in my day job... techie brain came out for a while there...)

Thanks thing1andthing2 (love your name btw) that theory makes perfect sense and gives me hope. That's exactly how I felt it - like PTSD type thing but obviously not proper PTSD.

nomore might it be also be worth revisiting the HV and asking for a CBT referral? At the very least it's an hour break from the babies once a week. I'm being glib but I honestly went from being a total cynic to finding it incredibly helpful. Though you may well sail through the next pregnancy - I know a few very good friends who suffered badly with PND the first time round, brushed it under the carpet, it got better and they've been fine with no. 2&3.

Thanks very much. Things - that was really interesting to read and, as MrsD says, makes perfect sense. I guess spending time talking to someone about it might also help to bring things back up and allow you to process them properly just like reminders of the event itself.

I think I'll mention it to my HV and see if I can get a referral. I'm more curious than anything to see if there is something I need to look at in more detail rather than it coming back to surprise me again in the future. It'll hopefully also make me less wary of having another baby, which currently scares the bejesus out of me - possibly because of the above.

Despite feeling like a neurotic bag of shite (especially today after DD has slept, in total for 30mins in the last 14h, not much crying, but AWAKENESS and wrigglign, miffing and yelling if not atttended to and also not wanting food, at all), I can also echo the CBT is all that is keeping me from total insanity.
I had sessions for a previous episode of serious depression and am using the techniques now (breathing, rationalising things through, aportioning responsibility fairly etc)...must be helping keep me afloat...lord know what else is otherwise.

i did all the sensible things such as talking on here, to friends, to sheila kitzinger's birth trauma people and had a debrief meeting with the hospital (and it wasn't the birth that was traumatic, really, in my case, more the circumstances and the fear that dd or myself would be ill or die).

still found myself sobbing to pieces in the kitchen then Helen had pre-eclampsia and a cs on the Archers...

Glad what I said was helpful... most hospitals have a debriefing midwife who will go through your birth notes with you and who is trained in counselling. This could be helpful as a first starting point, and for clarifying what happened and why. She would help you to work out if you need further help. You could talk to your HV or maybe ring labour ward to find out how to accessit.

I had a 'normal' birth but found the thought of it highly upsetting for weeks afterwards. Finally accepted the idea of a referral to talk it through at the hospital and found that the midwife who'd looked after me had been suspended. I had felt so scared because she made so many mistakes and didn't seem to know what she was doing, and it was only when I found out that others in authority thought the same that I stopped feeling pathetic and could get over it.

If you can go back and talk it through do - it made a huge (unexpected) difference to me.