Q: I'VE just had my first baby and it was a very traumatic labour which ended in an emergency cesarean and nearly losing my daughter. She's fine now, but I keep having flashbacks to the birth and I'm really troubled by it. What can I do to move on and enjoy being a mother?
A: Speaking before Birth Trauma Awareness Week (July 7-14), perinatal clinical psychologist Dr Emma Svanberg, co-founder of Make Birth Better (makebirthbetter.org ) and author of Why Birth Trauma Matters (Pinter & Martin, £8.99), says: "We're increasingly aware that many women (around one in three) come out of their birth experience feeling some symptoms of trauma.
"Flashbacks are one such symptom – these might be memories, or they may be less fully formed, such as a sensation.
"Many women also experience some level of 'trauma' but may not describe it as such as they don't meet the criteria for a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Birth trauma is in the eye of the beholder – that is, if you feel you're more affected by the birth than you expected, you may find it helpful to get some support.
"When we experience traumatic events, they're stored in a particular way in our memory, and this can leave us feeling we're not safe even when the event is far behind us. The first step to feeling better is to do lots of things to let your body know you're safe. Breathing is one quick way of doing this – spending a few minutes making sure your out breath is longer than your in breath is a quickfire way of turning off your fight or flight system.
"Grounding exercises are also helpful – concentrating on feeling your feet on the floor, looking for everything you can see which is blue, counting circles. This helps to ground you in the present.
"It's also really helpful to find someone to talk to about what happened to you. You can have a debrief session with your hospital, or speak to your GP about a referral to talking therapies.
"Many people find online support extremely helpful – through the Birth Trauma Association Facebook page, or the Make Birth Better Instagram account."
