What Is Birth Trauma?

Birth trauma is often minimized and overlooked.  You might find yourself wondering if it’s ok to be upset about what happened during your birth, or wondering if you’re even allowed to say you had a traumatic birth. You might notice your own inner dialogue is filled with thoughts like It wasn’t that bad. Everyone got out okay. I should be grateful.

But trauma isn’t determined by how dramatic an event looks from the outside. It’s determined by how your nervous system experienced it and whether you’ve had the space to process.

Birth trauma can happen after an emergency C-section or an unexpected intervention. It can happen after a long, painful labour where you felt unheard. It can happen after a birth that went “fine” on paper but left you feeling frightened, out of control, or alone. It can happen after a home birth that didn’t unfold the way you’d hoped. And it can happen after loss.

If something about your birth experience has stayed with you in a way that feels heavy or intrusive, that matters. You don’t need a dramatic story to deserve support.

Why Is Birth Trauma So Hard To Deal With?

Most people don’t receive any follow-up care specifically for the emotional impact of birth. You might be asked a few questions about your mood, but rarely does anyone sit with you and ask: How are you feeling about what happened during your labour?

This means a lot of birth trauma goes underground. People move forward, caring for their babies, returning to work, managing life. Meanwhile, while something unresolved quietly shapes how they feel about their body, their relationships, their sense of self as a parent.

Some signs that birth trauma may still be affecting you:

• Intrusive memories or flashbacks of the birth
• Anxiety or dread around anything related to pregnancy, hospitals, or birth
• Feeling disconnected from your body or from your baby
• Difficulty talking about the birth without shutting down or feeling overwhelmed with distressing emotions
• A persistent sense that something was taken from you
• Anger, grief, or shame that surfaces unexpectedly

How Does IFS Therapy Help With Birth Trauma?

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapy model that understands the mind as made up of different parts.  Parts can be explained as different internal desires or motives. For example, many of us have had the experience of feeling like part of us wants to go out on Friday night and part of us wants to stay home. IFS suggests that each of these desires is coming from a different part of ourselves. If we can get to know each part, we might find some clarity about what we actually want and feal more clearly about how to move forward.

When something traumatic happens, certain parts take on protective roles. In terms of birth trauma, people may find themselves thinking ‘part of me feels grateful that everything turned out ok, and part of me feels awful and wants to keep it from happening again’. Part of you might push the memory away so you can keep functioning, while another part might stay hypervigilant, scanning for danger to prevent further harm. Both parts can operate simultaneously, which is why we might feel a lot of inner conflict and distress.

IFS does not try to override or argue with these parts. Instead, it creates space to get curious about them. What are they protecting? What do they need? What have they been carrying alone?

Underneath the protective layers, there are often wounded parts. These more vulnerable parts might be carrying the fear, the helplessness, or the loss of the birth. IFS helps you gently approach those parts with compassion rather than avoidance, so the trauma can be processed, and the burden can be released.

For birth trauma specifically, this could mean:

• Working with the part that blames you. Many people carry shame about how their birth unfolded. They might carry a sense that they failed, or should have done something differently. IFS helps you understand where that belief came from and begin to release it.
  
• Healing the part that felt unheard. If your choices weren’t respected, or you felt like a bystander in your own birth, there may be a part of you that still holds the impact of that. IFS gives that part space to be witnessed.
  
• Integrating what happened into your story. Trauma becomes stuck when it can’t be processed. IFS helps you move from this happened to me and I still can’t look at it to this happened, I’ve grieved it, and I know who I am now.

I Know Who I Am Now

A Note on Somatic Work

Alongside IFS, I use somatic approaches that help you notice and work with your body’s responses. Our bodies can hold a lot of tension, bracing, and distress after a traumatic experience.  This somatic work can help you tolerate these sensations so you can feel more at home in your body again.

You Don’t Have to Keep Carrying This

Healing from birth trauma doesn’t mean forgetting what happened or pretending it was fine. It means being able to hold the experience with more ease and less shame.

If something about your birth experience has stayed with you, I’d be glad to talk. I offer a free 15-minute consultation, and there’s no pressure to commit to anything before you feel ready.

Book a free consultation →

Alison Bekendam is a Registered Social Worker and perinatal therapist in London, Ontario, with a background in midwifery. She offers birth trauma therapy and perinatal mental health support in person and virtually across Ontario.