It seems so simple. Just one moment, a few hours in the bigger scheme of life to birth a brand new human. Despite it’s respective “shortness”, birth and the memories and feelings surrounding it have a profound impact on women.
My oldest son is 27 years old, almost 28 and expecting his first child – a daughter – and regardless of the fact that so much time has passed, I do remember a lot of details about his birth. Sure, a lot more of it is fuzzy, but what I remember most is how I felt about the experience. I was extremely fortunate to have a positive first birth experience.
My second son is 25 years old and his birth was quite a bit less positive and more traumatic. I could go on down the line with each experience and tell you precisely how each “feels” to this day. Of course, my last babies were twins and preemies at that. So while the birth experience physically was actually fine, the emotional trauma of having babies early was significant. The fears and general frustrations of them being premature, and then having newborns in the NICU left a strange and very conflicting emotional burden behind.
Currently (in 2023) one out of every three women view their birth as traumatic. This has nothing to do with unexpected outcomes, it was entirely to do with what we refer to as SCAR.
Self-esteem
Control
Achievement
Respectful Care
When you take away any of those four essential things, especially during labor and delivery, you leave behind emotional (and sometimes physical) SCARs. As a childbirth educator and doula, one of my biggest goals is to help women and their birth support understand both the physical and the emotional side of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. Making sure women and their support people understand what to expect (or not) and how to help them overcome the bigger hurdles.
There is no way to guarantee a perfect outcome, but there are ways to minimize the trauma left behind. We need to do better. We need a generation of women who go into pregnancy and the birthing process understanding that this is what their bodies are made for. This is something that women have done for millennia, successfully! That it can be a beautiful and wonderful experience, even if it is overwhelming and all-consuming in some moments.
There are things that any woman and/or her support team can do to help!
- Knowledge matters: too many women decide to go into childbirth expecting the medical staff to “just tell me what to do.” This is so dangerous. If you do nothing else, please consider completing some form of evidence based childbirth education class. Go in armed with knowledge and expect to have a much better birthing experience.
- Tools: there are many helpful acronyms out there in the birth community, many of which you can simply print out and take with you to the hospital. At a glance you or your support team can easily see the steps for making decisions. (I have a downloadable printout of BRAINS at the end of this post that you’re welcome to grab for yourself!)
- Have a good support team! This is vital. Make sure that you are comfortable with the support you have chosen. The best supporters will also want to do their own research, but ultimately they will focus on you, your needs and what you want first and foremost. Don’t invite anyone that has their own agenda. Support should do exactly that – support you, cheer you on and encourage you as much as possible.
- Know what you want – but be prepared to be somewhat flexible. This goes hand in hand with the knowledge category. The more you know, the more you can make good decisions on the fly. Having a birth plan and making sure that your support team and birthing staff are aware of it is important. Knowing that they will respect that plan if at all possible is also key.
My hope is that we move forward as a birth worker community in encouraging and educating a new generation of women in having positive birth experiences through knowledge, good support and less unnecessary medical intervention.
Freebie! Here’s a great printable tool to take with you to the birth to help you and your support team make decisions.