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If you or a friend has experienced a traumatic birth, whether it was cesarean or vaginal, you are not alone!  Here are some tips on how to get through this difficult time.

Other women who have been through a traumatic birth have identified having someone to talk to as the most important part of their healing process.  This should be someone who can listen thoughtfully to the feelings you express without offering judgment.  Well-meaning friends and family may try to help you cope by highlighting the fact that you have a healthy baby or that you yourself are healthy, however the feelings you have are valid and should not be brushed aside.

Consider attending an ICAN meeting.  ICAN meetings offer a safe place to discuss your birth experience and are also a good place to help you learn about your options for future births.  ICAN members can also direct you to empathetic counselors who are trained in processing birth trauma.  They may also be able to provide recommendations for new mother support groups, post-partum doulas, acupuncturists, and other professionals who can be instrumental in helping you to recover, both physically and emotionally.   For information on ICAN of Baltimore meetings, see the “meetings” page of the ICAN of Baltimore website.

Read the cesarean poetry on the ICAN of Baltimore website and consider writing your own poem.  You may want to share your poem with those close to you in order to better express how you are feeling about your birth.

Give yourself plenty of time.  It is common for women who have suffered from traumatic births to take months or even years to process and learn to cope with what happened.  Learning the stages of the grief process (the same grief process used to describe the stages of coping with the loss of a loved one) and applying them to what you are living with may be helpful.  Although some women will eventually say that they have “gotten over” what happened, it is also normal to never feel like you can neatly tuck away your painful memories.  Rather, the experience is something you learn to cope with and it becomes part of who you are.

Over time, some women find that they are grateful for their experience in that going through it made them stronger and better able to assert their needs and wishes in many areas of life later on.  Many women also go on to become birth activists, doulas, childbirth educators, or midwives to help other women avoid experiencing traumatic births.

The information on this link was made possible by a grant from Lamaze International.