How to avoid birth trauma
When I was pregnant the number one thing I wanted to avoid was birth trauma. I didn’t want to have a birth experience that made me too scared to get pregnant again. I had heard the horror stories and I knew that I needed to be proactive to have a positive birth. I don’t believe there are any guarantees in birth (like there are no guarantees in life) but I do think there are things you can do to lower your chance of having a traumatic birth. I have listed out the 5 things that can help you have a better birth experience, whether it’s your first birth or your fifth.
Reasons birth trauma happens
There are many reasons birth trauma may happen. Some of these include choosing a provider who doesn’t support you, ignoring your intuition, having things done to you, and not feeling you have a choice in how your birth unfolds.
Choose your provider
Who you choose to attend your birth is one of the most important decisions you’ll make that will determine how your birth will go. I see a lot of women in the conscious birth community insist that hiring a midwife over an OB is the only thing you need to have a good birth. Or even the other extreme that any professional at all attending your birth will lead to interventions that can cause trauma. I am here to argue that choosing your provider isn’t so cut and dry. There are great OBs, awful midwives, and everything inbetween. Even a doula or family member can disturb your birth. The most important thing to consider when choosing who will be at your birth is how they make you feel.
Does your support:
Make you feel seen and heard
Support your birth plan
Explain processes and procedures
These are all great signs. If you feel like you’re judged, just another patient, not listened to, not understood, or just generally not connected to your provider you need to decide if you really want them in the room when you’ve vulnerable and giving birth. Chances are if they make you feel judged during prenatal appointments, that’s how you’ll feel during your birth too. A provider who doesn’t respect you and your autonomy over your birth is one of the biggest reasons trauma happens. It’s never too late to change providers.
Being informed on interventions
It’s easy to disregard interventions entirely when you’re only thinking about your ideal birth, but understanding every intervention will help you advocate for yourself and make choices before you’re literally pushing out a baby. Understanding things like:
Eating during labor
When c-sections are truly emergencies
Pitocin: pros and cons
Epidural and other pain-reducing labor drugs
IVs and IV locks
Cascade of interventions
Interventions that cause fetal distress
Will help you write a robust birth plan and allow you to back up your preferences with facts. Often, hospitals do things not because they are the most evidence-based, but because that is their standard procedure. Many hospitals are behind on updating evidence-based care for labor and delivery.
Understanding normal variations in birth
There are many variations of normal labor. Knowing how physiological birth unfolds and how a typical labor goes is useful to building your birth plan. You should inform yourself about the 3 stages of labor and what can help you cope during each stage. Learning what helps many women during active labor, for example, will help you to feel prepared. Knowing that women often feel like giving up during transition will remind you that your baby is about to be born. This simple reminder might help you to avoid an unplanned epidural.
The other reason this is important is because interventions may be pushed on you when your labor is not typical. Some women get to 10 centimeters dilated and their body rests before pushing. If you are coached to push before your body is ready you might tear or be told you need a c-section due to “prolonged” or stalled labor. This is an example of providers pathologizing normal labor. When you know that this is just a variation you will be able to avoid unnecessary interventions that may end up being traumatizing.
Creating a birth plan
In my opinion, I believe a birth plan should not only include your ideal birth, but a contingency plan. I think we all would love to have a blissful pain-free birth, but birth is unpredictable. I know many people in the birth world who think that thinking positively is the end all be all, and while I think mindset is important: it’s not the only thing. I know a few women who went into having an unmedicated homebirth who assumed it would be amazing because of the setting and mitigated interventions. Birth, however, had other plans for these women, long labors that they weren’t coping well will felt traumatic. Because, as I stated above, feeling like you don’t have control or choice in birth is one form of birth trauma. Avoiding this trauma involves understanding all aspects of modern birth and knowing what you want in any given situation before you’re in active labor.
Intuition
Your mother’s intuition is an important muscle you need to flex, and pregnancy is the best time to do just that. Trusting yourself during pregnancy will transfer to your motherhood journey once your baby is born. If an intervention, provider, or anything else feels off-trust yourself! I’m willing to bet it’s more important to you what happens to you and your baby during birth than any provider, hospital, or birth center. Do your research and trust yourself to make decisions for your baby.
