The birth of a child is meant to be one of the happiest and wonderful moments of your life, but for many women and families it can be frightening, physically and emotionally damaging, and nothing that they had hoped for or planned. Nearly one third of women have regrets about how their birth played out, one third feel unhappy with the process and one in five feel pressured into having a medical intervention that they didn’t want, while

The birth of a child is supposed to be one of the happiest and wonderful moments of your life, but for many women and families it can be frightening, physically and emotionally damaging, and nothing that they had hoped for or planned. Nearly one-third of women have regrets about how their birth played out, one third feel unhappy with the process and one in five feel pressured into having a medical intervention that they didn’t want, while approximately 10-20% of first-time mothers will sustain long-term physical injury from childbirth.

Many women emerge carrying trauma from their birth experience, often due to not feeling as though they had a voice in their experience and were instead left feeling unhappy and pressured into things they didn’t want to happen. This can leave the woman with lasting physical and emotional damage. Trauma effects may continue long after the birth, with both psychological and physical symptoms including fear, anxiety, irritability, nightmares, pain, incontinence and dizziness. They may also relive the negative experience through repeated flashbacks following the birth, which can affect how the mother forms her attachment with her baby and can potentially result in postnatal depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Birthing women must be felt listened to, heard and nurtured throughout the whole labour and birth and postpartum process so that they are left going into motherhood feeling confident and strong. It has been shown that the best outcomes for women involved them feeling as though they had some control and voice in their labour and birth experience. One-third of women said they would have liked to have had the opportunity to speak with someone about what happened after their birth. Partners and loved ones play a vital role in supporting the birthing woman and can often experience trauma themselves.

At the Australian Trauma Support Centre, we specialise in supporting people affected by trauma. We can help support you through this and provide ways to assist you with the emotional trauma experienced. If you are finding yourself struggling to cope after a traumatic event, please get in contact with us or your GP. You are not alone and you do not need to keep feeling like this.