Healing from a traumatic birth experience is hard. In this article, we talk about five ways you can help the healing process.
Giving birth can be vastly different to the breezy, smiling experience we see in the movies. The reality can be really traumatic and even when your baby is healthy and safe, the trauma of giving birth can damage your mental health.
Repairing that damage can take time and is often a long journey. Any person who experienced negligence during the birth should speak to a birth injury lawyer, who help you deal with what’s happened.
In this article we have taken a look at five things you can do to recover from a traumatic birth experience. We will be focusing on your mental health for these strategies because it’s important that you feel okay again.
The Mental Health Struggles of Traumatic Birth
A traumatic birth experience can happen to anybody. If something goes wrong giving birth, then it can quickly become a traumatic experience. Even giving birth without complications can be traumatising if you have never had any experience.
The physical damage of a traumatic birth will heal in time, but your mental health won’t be so quick to recover. Lots of mothers have anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms and can struggle to form a loving relationship with their babies.
It’s hard to talk about a traumatic birth with friends and family because they may not have any experience to understand your struggle. Without the life experience to relate to what you’re going through, it can seem very lonely to deal with a traumatic birth.
Tips For Dealing With Traumatic Birth
Let’s take a look at five things you can do to recover your mental health after a traumatic birth.
Don’t Judge Yourself
A traumatic birth is not your fault. You are not responsible for what happens during childbirth. Accidents and complications arise all the time, so you shouldn’t judge yourself. Giving birth is frequently a painful and exhausting experience.
Acknowledge You’re Not Okay
Lots of people try to cope with mental health struggles by pretending that everything is okay. They will ignore any suggestions that they’re not dealing with things and react negatively. If you want to recover your mental health after a traumatic birth, you have to accept that you’re not okay. You’re allowed to not be okay and it’s often the first step in getting some.
Look At Your Relationship With Your Baby
If you want to fix your mental health after a traumatic birth then you need to look at your relationship with your baby. If you are angry, resentful, or even afraid of your baby, then you need to acknowledge that.
You can’t begin to change the relationship until you admit that it’s not healthy. It’s normal for mothers to unconsciously blame the baby for a traumatic birth, but the truth is that it is not either of your fault.
Talk To People
Obviously, it’s difficult to talk to people about a traumatic birth if they don’t have the life experience to relate to what’s happened, but you need to talk to somebody. If you feel that you would benefit from seeing a therapist, then you should do that.
We often need to talk about our feelings to work through them, and if you want to deal with this, you’re going to have to talk about it. Try and do this in a safe space because it can be scary to confront the event again.
Be Kind to Yourself
Be kind to yourself during your recovery. The path to getting better is rarely a straight line. You may find that you have good days and bad days. This is perfectly normal, and you should try and look at it as part of the journey. You can get better, and you can move on from a traumatic birth, but you have to be kind to yourself during the recovery process.
Recovering from a traumatic birth…
Trying to recover your mental health after a traumatic birth is hard. You may struggle to describe how you’re feeling, and you might be angry, but in order to deal with these feelings, you’re going to have to confront them. What happened to you was not your fault, it wasn’t something you could’ve prevented, and it’s okay to be upset and traumatised.
Please be advised that this article is for general informational purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for advice from a trained medical professional. Be sure to consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if you’re seeking medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. We are not liable for risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.
