How long did birth trauma effect you for?

[RooksAndRavens]

So my eldest turns 4 this week and I still feel traumatised by his birth. It made my existing mental health problems worse. I had a 3 day back to back labour, pain relief made me violently sick, epidural, forceps, episiotomy, torn artery, 3L blood loss and blood transfusion. Couldn't properly breast feed as I was so ill and we were readmitted because ds went suddenly floppy through dehydration which was scary. I couldn't walk, sit down because of the pain I was in. I couldn't breath because if the blood loss. It was horrible.

Amazingly I did go on to have dc2 through sheer determination that my ds wouldn't be an only child like I was. I was so fearful throughout. I have also had therapy in the last few years, after dc2 as well but I feel like the birth trauma will never leave me.

Have you read the body keeps the score?

@Teenyliving no, is it good?

I reckon about 18 months/two years. Going onto have my second child was a massive help for me. It helped that I had a comparatively more pleasant experience with him (but it still went tits up).

Try and accept the pain and fear. Don’t be afraid of it. Feel how you feel. Keep in accepting it, rather than being impatient and pushing it away.
By doing this you will be able to let go.
for you.

Join the birth trauma association group on fb. Try and get some therapy if you can. There's no time limit on trauma.

8 years on and am still affected. Last week we had to go to the hospital where he was born and it triggered things again.

Am awaiting another block of counselling sessions.

Yep it’s not specifically about birth trauma - but it’s about how trauma changes your physiology - et your stress response. So as well as talking therapy lots of body focussed therapy can be helpful.

indont have experience of birth trauma but of other trauma. I was just thinking it might be helpful for you to maybe at times try to decouple it from being about birth (and all the emotional complexity of that) and approach it as changes that happened to your physiology that you can assess that way. A lot of the trauma response happens at a physiological body that one’s not even really aware of

my experience of trauma is that lots of different things can help.

What are your main feelings about it at the moment? Anger/ sadness/ disbelief?
Does it feel like something you're still experiencing or something that happened to you in the past?

Every trauma journey is different. Getting support helps. 3 step rewind helps.

www.rutholayinka.com/hypnotherapy-services/resolve-birth-and-natal-trauma/. Likely to require three sessions at £67 each - just so you have an idea of what costs might be involved.

This is a link to the birth trauma support group. www.facebook.com/groups/TheBTA/ and the associated website. www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk/for-parents/what-is-birth-trauma.

I would say I still feel disappointed that I went through that and I get jealous when people I know sail through pregnancy/birth which I then feel horrible about.

I had/ have health anxiety years prior to having children and it really made that all worse. I've never coped well with having periods since having ds and I think that's partly down to the pph I had.
I also had to relive it in my mind a lot when pregnant with dc2 and giving birth to her. Although it was a more straight forward birth, ironically with no pain relief at all. And she's a year old so it's all fairly recent still.

I didn't start to recover until i had EMDR. its expensive but i saw an improvement after only a couple of sessions.

Have you had a birth debrief?
I had a very similar experience, did a debrief when pregnant with DD2 (same reason for 2nd child) and found accepting my body didn't fail, I didn't fail, xyz happened because of xyz and actually some parts were the Dr's fault. I'm now 38 weeks pregnant with DS1 and I'm scared and getting the fear again, but seeing the kids together, makes it all worth it. x

You're still in the baby zone so there are lots of people talking about births/ feeding etc so it's hard not to compare. That stops, and now mine are at school I have to be careful not to show off all the time as my kids (imho) are just so amazing. Yes I had an awful time at their birth but I have amazing luck now with them. The trauma is a small part of my story, as it soon will be for you. That's not to be dismissive or to say you shouldn't get help, but just to say, time is a healer and what happened to you is no reflection of you as a parent x