@*@*@* Birth trauma @*@*@*

[lulumama]

In light of a couple of recent threads, I searched for how many times I have discussed birth trauma on here - 76 times !

So , for any mum who is affected by a traumatic birth, here are two really useful links

birth trauma association

birth crisis

Birth trauma is one of those issues, like PND, that often gets ignored, or swept under the carpet...

there is not a sliding scale of trauma, it can affect you if you had a vaginal birth, a caesarean birth, if it has affected you and left you feeling upset, sad, empty, cheated, bewildered, in emotional pain, then you can get help and support..

Another good thing to do is to contact the head of midwifery where you gave birth, and ask to go through your notes, or get in touch with the patient liaison service - PALS - who can help with this too

Thanks for this info - I was chatting to a friend last night who is 6 weeks pregnant. She had a traumatic experience with her first birth and is terrified same is going to happen again. I said I was sure there were people she could talk to and knew exactly where to look. Lo and behold came on Mumsnet this morning and found exactly what I needed!!

Isn't Mumsnet great?

i hope she gets the help she needs before this baby arrives !

yes, mumsnet is the best !

thanks for starting this thread lulu. i know it's stupid but i still feel really traumatised over ds' birth. i mean, he's 9mo now, when is this gonna stop? i didn't know that you could have a "debriefing" from the hospital, i'll definitely do that. i genuinely think my traumatic birth was due to no more than gross incompetence from the staff, and i'm still so angry and hurt about now, 9 months on.

something i found which helped, was that i wrote down my birth story, all of it, as i remembered it, on livejournal. i know a lot of women read it and were horrified, and i'm sorry for that, but it helped me get it out to an extent.

obviously i'm glad ds is here, but the birthing experience i went through made me feel terribly distant from him, and - i think - directly contributed to the pnd i had later. when i think about it i just feel tearful, and reading threads like the "no offence" one make me cry. dh doesn't know why

god, i'm gonna stop now cause i'm just depressing myself, but thank you again lule for starting this, you are a really lovely person. have a {x} from me (very rare!)

no worries, my lovely

i had no idea you felt like this

and it is not stupid to feel like this after 9 months

i still feel sad from time to time, especially now i know how different it could have been, about DSs birth and he is 8 now!

if you want to forward me your birth story, i;d be happy to give you my thoughts. if there was real imcompetence you can and should complain to head of midwifery.

there should be a MSLC at your local hospital and maternity care forums, who need to know about incompetence.

thanks for the x, have a big (((((((((((hug))))))) from me xx

i do remember you started off as a homebirth, and either transferred in or had to go and be induced?
anyhoo, email me if you need to

lulumama 21 @ hotmail .com

no gaps x

am bumping this as have noticed on a few threads recently that there are some ladies who could do with a birth debrief and some support following a bad birth experience.

also, you can request to have copies of your notes, and to go through them with a midwife.. PALS at your local hospital can tell you how to arrange that..

Ah, very interesting. I guess I would like to add my experience. I am suffering from post-traumatic stress arising from complications after a miscarriage last year. Fisrt I had an incomplete ERPC (chances are 1:100), then a cervical stenosis (1:10000). I think the 'trauma' was caused by doctors who insisted I was fine and my symptoms were purely stress-retated and only started to look into it after 6 months. I ended up having to have 3 surgeries.

I am pregnant again and as the delivery is getting closer, I am increasingly horrified that in the worst case scenario I might have to transfer to the same hospital (I am planning home birth with an IM which I am very happy about).

I found that there is very little understanding for my particular situation. I have started a complaint process with the hospital, where I was guess what dismissed. I have had private counselling (which wasn't helpful with the PTSS) and I contacted the birth trauma association, who haven't gotten back to me (understandably, since I do not really suffer from 'birth trauma').

I guess I would like to say that there are pregnancy and birth relatead traumas, that do not fall in one of the common categories and for those finding help (and acknowledgement) can be even harder. (Sorry, do not mean to compare, but I am really shocked that nobody seems to believe me or take me serious, especially since I have fallen pregnant since...)

hi glimmer

congratulations on your pregnancy.

am very sorry to hear what a terrible time of it you ahve had. i;m afraid i don;t know what a stenosis is.. perhaps you could explain it a little?

i am not surprised , sadly, you were not taken seriosuly, this is a recurring pattern in trauma/ PTSD post birth.. or miscarriage in your case.

re BTA - did oyu contact a volunteer directly, or email the main address?

Lula, just followed the link to the B T A website...and re read my Birth story (Christine's homebirth ended in an emergency caesarean section) and whilst I was cringing about the way I wrote it, I am glad I wrote it down....I can still remember how upset I was, and how many doubts set in afterwards with all the confusing information I then received about it all...I must admit, all in all my feelings have not changed, my stance is still...NEVER AGAIN....however I can now look back and see that I don't feel like this anymore and that I have certainly moved on, although I know I am still effected by this experience....

oh right, i didn;t know that was you.

i got peace finally, with the birth of DD. everything i learnt whilst pregnant with her, made me understand that i would never have given birth vaginally to DS , with the way my labour was managed. yes, 8 years later, i am still a little sad ,but i don;t blame myslef, or feel like a failure in anyway, and taht is the difference .what is done, is done, but how you feel about it is so crucial.

Hi Lulumama,

Thanks for starting this thread originally.
I do not want to hijack it for my own purposes but since I believe that information is very important and would have shortened my months of anxiety, here it is:

After the first incomplete ERPC (diagnosed 10 weeks after the first one through a private consultant), I needed another one. During this surgery my cervix was scarred in such a way that it 'healed' (grew) completely shut. Since the menstruation blood cannot exit the normal way, it pools in the uterus and can be pressed through the gap between ovaries and tubes into the abdomen. And blood in the abdomen can (but doesn't need to) turn any minute in a life-threatening sepsis just like an appedicitis.

The sympons are pain and amenorrhoea. My problem was that the doctors said they would only look into it, if I bleed (which I did, but not externally). It took months before I went finally private (again) and a single ultrasound scan revealed that my uterus was full of blood. It was straightforward medical intervention from there.

It's a complications that is known (I had to sign that there is a 1:10000 risk of this before the ERPC) and I cannot believe that the doctors didn't exclude this a reason for my symptoms.

Sorry, this post got way to long. I do not know much about trauma, but it seems that there are several stages: one where you do not want to talk about what happened to you and then one where you want to talk about it continuously and I think that just listening to each other and sharing can help a lot in putting the traumatic events behind us. But I also think that there is very little understanding unless one has oneself gone through a traumatic experience, and that's why often even close friendships fail in being helpful getting through it.

Does anybody share these thoughts?

I read a post on birth trauma last night which hopefully I helped a little on. Thing is it has actually just reminded me how awful DD1s birth was for me.

Not as bad as many I know but it took the delivery 3 days in total but about 4-5 midwife shifts in the hospital, baby was posterior, frequently in distress, waters gone without me knowing (muchto the incrdulity of staff), induction, ventouse, blue and floppy baby rushed to SCBU (thnkfully only there a day). But over all of that the worst thing was that DH and I were left for an hour in that delivery room on our own not knowing whether to be happy or grieve. We barely spoke for fear of what might be happening.

She was a smallish baby too (5lb 12oz) and the Doctor accused me of smoking through pregnancy which didnt help. I had to have an operation on a fracture (totally seperate to birth) 3 days after delivery too which didnt help so my day of baby blues were accompanied by a lot of morphine to help with the pain

Thankfully DD1 is ok and I now have a 2nd which was an easier delivery. I wish I'd known you could go through your delivery as perhaps it might have prevented the PND (albeit quite mild) I went through.

Last night I got really upset about the whole thing and I cant see how I will ever forget the utter feeling of uselessness I felt during & after delivery. Now I feel angry and let down. This was 3.5 years ago

I hadnt smoked during pregnancy btw in case that wasnt clear.

glimmer

thanks for sharing your story.. so you suffered something quite rare,but a known complication, and suffered as a result.

i absolutely agree with your thoughts about trauama. especially the part where you want to talk about it endlessly and keep talking it through. that is a common theme. and then often, you end up not talking about it becasue no-one is listening/ hearing and helping.

glasslipper

the feeling of uselesness is just awful, and feeling like you have failed, and it can be really hard to get over it. 10 times out of 10, when a woman relates her birth story to me, i can pinpoint hte parts where intervention, or medicalisation or simply lack of encouragement have all contributed to a labour stalling or stopping... on the whole when women are left to labour, they can just get on with it. not to say intervention is not sometimes necessary, but many times it seems that had things been allowed to progress, spontaneously or naturally, there might have been a different outcome. or even if the outcome was teh same, the woman would feel very differntly about it.

You see reading this has made me think quite a bit, I would not have said any of my births were what I understood to be traumatic but they were certainly not perfect and the 2nd and 3rd birth were both followed by quite severe pnd and these were the births that intervention was not how I wanted it to be.

I knew you could see you notes but I have decided not to as I worry what re living it would do

you can go through the birth trauma assoc or birth crisis, without actually going through your notes, just telling your birth stories, and sometimes talking it through or writing it down can be of huge benefit.

Thanks Lulumama. Often I feel fine and feel I have come to terms with the whole thing. Then something pulls me up and makes me start to dwell on it. I am still shocked it cause such a reaction such a long time on...

if it is never dealt with and 'put to bed', then it can come back and surprise you. .years later.. you can still go through your notes, although you might well have to pay a fee to get them, and try to get some closure on things.

bump