Birth Trauma Counselling

We are here to help women start their own healing process

Other symptoms

Anger

There is so much anger against those you treated you so badly that you could kill them with your own hands. But before you do that you want answers to your many questions about the decisions they took over your head…they need to give you a very good explanation otherwise you kill them time after time in your thoughts. And all these actions are only in your thoughts.

Guilt
You feel guilty for not measuring up to what the health professionals want from you: breast feeding, bonding with your baby and keeping all appointments.

Isolation
There is no mother who can understand you when you express your feelings to them. Nor can any member of your family comprehend the deep sadness, anger and life of hell you are living. Therefore you isolate yourself from mothers, friends and family….and most dangerous of all: you isolate yourself from doctors, midwives and nurses.

Fear of becoming pregnant again
There is no way you will get pregnant again, just the thought makes you sweat in fear. Therefore your sex life is non existent. Please see Tokophobia

If you are experiencing most of these symptoms, go to your doctor and explain them to her. Be sure that she knows about postnatal trauma and doesn’t get confused with postnatal depression. Contact us if you need more help.

Extracted from Real Healing After Caesarean
by Martha Jesty.
Visit www.realhealing.co.uk
or order this book from this website to raise money

Trauma after abortion

Is abortion an option when you want to have a second child so much after a traumatic first birth? There is plenty of evidence and research relating to women who have had an abortion exhibiting an extremely negative psychological response, and in many cases, trauma. Abortion brings subsequent psychological problems, especially for those who have suffered PN PTSD, bringing them even more trauma and guilt. The symptoms are described as long-lasting and recurring, and characterised by sadness, depression, sorrow, anger, guilt, low self-esteem, surprise at the intensity of their emotional reaction, preoccupation with the aborted child, repression and discomfort at being around babies or young children, flashbacks of the abortion experience, thoughts of suicide, nightmares related to the abortion, hallucinations related to the abortion.

The first thing to do is to deal with your birth trauma now that there is time before your child comes to this world. Find Steps for your Own Recovery. Having a good birth experience after a traumatic time is very healing in itself, in that it can help to give a sense of closure to a previous bad experience.
If you discovered that you are pregnant for the second time the first thing you need to do is to get counselling with someone who has experience in dealing with trauma. You can also find someone among your family or friends who can listen to your concerns without judgment.

If you are suffering from this condition please make an appointment with one of our counsellors at Birth Trauma Counselling centre in Surbiton, Surrey or find a counsellor near you.

How to recognize trauma

Thousands of women suffer from postnatal trauma after childbirth in the UK but it is unrecognized or misdiagnosed. There is a lack of social awareness, training for the medical staff and treatment for the survivors. A description of the symptoms is below and we hope that it will help health professionals to understand this condition in a better way and make an accurate diagnose.

If you think you have been traumatized by childbirth please check the list below and contact your GP.

Flashbacks
Like a video tape of the birth being played on anytime anywhere and it comes suddenly without a warning and you want to escape, scream, hit yourself, disappear, you feel dying again and find difficult to breath.

Suicidal thoughts
You wish you are dead; sometimes your thoughts are about taking an overdose or similar actions to finish your life but you really want to live...you just want to someone to listen to you without any judgement.

Nightmares
These are so vivid that you wake up with a heart beat acceleration frightened because someone tried to kill you in your dreams…but you escape…again. Therefore you prefer not to sleep or only sleep a few hours.

Depression
You looked depressed but in many cases you are not really depressed or suffer from depression, it just comes when you think about your future and there is no way out…and then you cry because there is no one to understand what you went through

Emotional numbing
There are no feelings inside you; there is disbelief at the atrocities the health professionals have carried out against you and your body; you feel that you are a character in a film.

Problems with bonding
There is an unconscious, and sometimes conscious, rejection of your baby as a constant reminder of your traumatic birth. It is so difficult and sometimes impossible to love your baby although deep inside you know you love him/her but cannot express those feelings. Every time your baby gets ill, you think she/he will die and you behave as though it will happen.

Extracted from Real Healing After Caesarean
by Martha Jesty.
Visit www.realhealing.co.uk
or order this book from this website to raise money

Birth Trauma Counselling is a project from Help Women and Children, a non-profit UK organization helping women traumatized by childbirth. Help Women and Children is a charitable company limited by guarantee in England and Wales No. 5959138 based in Surbiton, Surrey, UK