Common Reason for Trauma | Tangible Tools for Trauma Prevention and Healing |
1. Unmet Promises | Example: Birth attendant/support person/educator implicitly or directly guarantees that an expressed concern is not going to or will happen in birth, and it unfolds differently in birth. Prevention and Healing: Honest Validation. Expanding possibilities for clients. Asking questions about how they coped with the event. “How did you manage to keep going?” Humanizing those who made promises, naming their positive intentions. |
2. Elephant in the room not addressed: When the Unwished-for and Unwanted Happens | Example: Birth attendant and/or client doesn’t bring up what will happen in birth should a cesarean happen or transfer or other “hard stuff.” Client often blames self when the unwished for happens. Prevention and Healing: Honest validation. Exploring fears ahead of time, asking “what is one thing you might do to stay present should the unwished for happen?” . After birth asking “How did you know to do that? Eg, “how did you know it was time to get the epidural” (if they are blaming themselves for getting an epidural) or “How do you know to believe this about birth or bodies or babies?” |
3. Rupture in Relationships | Example: Birth attendant or partner or other person didn’t show up how the birthing client was hoping they would. Prevention and Healing: Honest validation. Humanizing all the people in the birth space, naming that we are imperfect and learning. Asking before birth: “what is one thing you might do to stay connected to your partner, self, baby even in moments of doubt and uncertainty?” After birth, asking: “what is something the baby would say you did for them?” |
4.Overwhelming physical experience (too much too fast) | Orientation: Slowing down pacing. Naming sensations associated with feelings. Nervous system co-regulation. Discharging/completion of autonomic response/cycle. Participation in client’s own care (eg, palpating baby with provider). After birth, asking “When did you know you/the baby would be ok?” |
5. Lack of Compassionate Witness, Feeling Othered | Restoration Practices: Mindfulness, Ceremony, recreating connection with baby and/or family, being held in community. A resonant witness who deeply understands one’s birth experience. Birth Story Listening. |
Trauma Prevention and Healing in Practice
Gathered by Nicole Morales, Emma Moreland, and Jamie Mossay
Resources for Birth Trauma:
Birthing from Within trainings www.birthingfromwithin.com
Birth Story Medicine Courses: www.birthstorymedicine.com
Tema Mercado’s workshops, especially Postpartum Sealing training www.lamatrizmidwife.com
Scar Tissue Remediation Education and Management courses with Ellen Heed www.scartissueremidation.com
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Resmaa Menakem
Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Power, and Use It for Good, Kimberly Ann Johnson. Additional nervous system trainings www.kimberlyannjohnson.com
Peyton, Sarah. Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2017. www.yourresonantself.com, www.sarahpeyton.com
Birthing Justice: Black women, pregnancy, and childbirth. Opparah, J.C, and Bonaparte, A.D.
Solution-Focused Counseling or Solution Focused Brief Therapy Trainings or Publications: www.solutionfocused.net
Interviewing for Solutions and Brief Coaching for Lasting Solutions. Insoo Kim Berg
Emma, Jamie, and Nicole are birthworkers and bodyworkers practicing a trauma-informed approach to care and have integrated birth trauma prevention and healing into their practices. They have trained with and facilitate Birthing from Within principles and elements of Birth Story Listening/Healing, as well as many others. They are teachers and/or trainers with Spinning Babies.