If you had a traumatic birth was it worth doing a birth debrief?

[HannahBerry]

What exactly happens? How do you get one? What is discussed? Was it with the midwife that delivered you? Did it help?

Six weeks on after a traumatic and very long labour/ birth and I think I need to talk it through with someone but I wonder if it'll actually help me feel less upset or more wound up ...

Mine was a total waste of time I'm afraid. Hence my child is an only, there was no way I was doing that again.

Mine was really helpful. I knew I'd had a bad time but had blocked it out until I was pregnant with DC2. At my 24 week MW appt I said I was getting really nervous about labour as I just didn't know what had actually happened with DC1 (induced with drip; epidural; heart rate dipped; forceps in theatre; DC1 born grey & lifeless with APGAR of 4) as everything had been going well and then suddenly it wasn't and so the MW suggested I saw the birth reflections counsellor. Due to complications (see below) I ended up speaking to her briefly on DC2's EDD but the conversation completely set my mind at rest as I realised that, whilst it did all change quickly & seemed out of control to me, for the MWs & doctors involved it was a fairly usual complication & they dealt with it in the standard way & never had any real concerns about DC1's well being. The fact I was most interested about was that she didn't breathe by herself for 2 minutes - it had seemed like a lifetime at the time but I didn't know afterwards whether it was a case of time really slowing down and in reality only lasted a few seconds or whether it really had been longer. Knowing that it was 2 minutes makes me feel more justified in having been so upset by it IYSWIM.
As others have said, I'd raise it sooner rather than later as the relevant people may not work that frequently (the birth counsellor at my hospital only works 2 days a week during term time). I raised it at my 24 wk appt (so when DC1 was 2yr4mo) & it took the counsellor 4 weeks to contact me. She could only offer me a choice of two appointments between then and my due date. The appt was booked for 7 weeks later (so when I was 35 weeks) but I was called on the morning of my appt to say my notes had got lost so there was no point in going. I rang up the following week to see if they had appeared & was told the counsellor was on holiday for 3 weeks. I rang when she was back (39.4 by this stage) and no, they still hadn't appeared. She rang me on DC2's EDD to see if I'd had the baby yet as they'd turned up that morning. She then spent 20 mins going through my notes over the phone.