What is birth trauma? (and how to heal)

Has your anxiety drastically increased after giving birth to your baby?

You may be suffering from a traumatic birthing experience, which could increase anxiety or even lead you to develop postpartum PTSD. PTSD is not just experienced by soldiers at war.

It comes about whenever anyone experienced something that was perceived as life-threatening to themselves or a loved one, including a scary birthing experience.

Symptoms may include:

🔸Intrusive memories from the birthing experience that disturbs you

🔸Increased anxiety and overworrying

🔸Fear of death for you, your spouse or your baby

🔸Feeling frightened and panicked over physical sensations that did not bother you in the past, interpreting them as something potentially life-threatening

🔸Nightmares

🔸Flashbacks

🔸Constantly looking out for potential danger

Try these techniques to begin to heal. It may be beneficial to have the support of a therapist if it gets too scary for you or begins to produce panic.

🔸 Twice a day for 10-15 minutes at a time, write down your birth story and allow yourself to feel all of the anxiety and scary emotions that you experienced at that time.

🔸 Rate your anxiety from 0-100 (with 100 being the highest) before the exercise AND after. Do this daily until the rating gets as close to 0 as possible/desired.

🔸Rewrite your birthing experience with the way that you wish it could have went and allow yourself to grieve. Replace the negative, haunting images with more positive, even humorous images. Humor can create a shift in us that can be quite healing.

🔸 Write down the benefits in your current symptoms instead of trying to stuff them, which could make them intensify. (e.g., I'm looking out for danger because I really want to protect my life and my baby's life; the intrusive memories validates my scary experience and shows that I'm not making this up.)

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