A difficult or frightening birth experience can impact how you feel after giving birth. You may feel numb and detached from your baby. You may be depressed. Or you may be experiencing a traumatic stress reaction, where you replay the events of your birth over and over in your mind. A difficult birth can even delay when your milk becomes more plentiful. Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to heal after a difficult birth and move on with your life.
Resources that Can Help
- Making Peace with Your Birth Experience
- Kendall-Tackett, K. A. (2009). Traumatic stress symptoms in parents of premature infants. Trauma Psychology, 4(3), 16-18.
- Broken Maternity: A Sisterhood of Sorrow (Childbirth after an Abortion)
- US National Institute of Health's Consensus Statement on VBAC
- Birth Stories from the Power to Push Website
- The Rights of Childbearing Women
Organizations
- PTSDAfterChildbirth.org
- Association for Improvement of Maternity Services (AIMS-UK)
- ChildbirthConnection.org
- Birthing from Within
- International Cesarean Awareness Network
- Coalition for the Improvements of Maternity Services (CIMS)
- www.lifecirclecc.com
- GentleBirth.org
- The Birth Trauma Association (Great Britain)
- Trauma and Birth Stress (New Zealand)