Support after birth or other difficult perinatal experience. Including the 3 Step Rewind technique.
I am passionate about perinatal wellbeing (perinatal meaning ‘around’ birth, so both before and after baby arrives). Having undergone specialist training in birth listening and reflecting, as well as being an accredited practitioner of the 3 Step Rewind technique that can help bring relief to parents after a difficult or traumatic birth or postnatal experience. I also have specialist training in supporting women after a birth injury (like a tear or episiotomy that is causing pain and/or emotional and mental problems)
Around 30% of all women find some aspect of their birth traumatic or distressing, which equates to around 200,000 women per year in the UK. So you are not alone in this sadly. Even more tragically this statistic only reflects the tip of the iceberg when it comes to perinatal trauma. An even greater number of parents struggle to cope with miscarriage, difficult fertility journeys, birth injury, difficulty breastfeeding and many other difficult challenges but have nowhere to turn for support because society does not recognise the importance of traumatic events on emotional health and the implications this has for their mental health.
Having you birth story listened to in a way that brings peace and encourages recovery is the beginning of your healing from what happened. I can share with you a process that is safe and gentle. What I offer is different to a debrief at the hospital, which may look for understanding into what happened and why, with a medical perspective (which can also be very valuable) - but this type of debriefing although giving you some answers can actually be triggering for parents, and can leave you still having feelings of heaviness or trauma. In fact NICE do now do not recommend this type of debrief if you feel your birth was traumatic. So my work may be used in conjunction with a hospital debrief (before it can be really helpful), or instead of one if you feel you don’t need or want to speak to a medical person or go back to the hospital, but still have negative feelings around birth.
I can offer you three specialist services:
~ A birth listening, reflecting and debriefing service. Help and support with Birth Story Processing.
~ A specialised trauma relief process (known as 3-step rewind). With these services I want to support women and birthing people who have had difficult births or fertility or postnatal experiences (this includes for example miscarriage, difficult breastfeeding experiences or fertility struggles). Done in a gentle, compassionate and safe way to help you to lift the heavy feelings and symptoms that can remain after a difficult or traumatic birth, postnatal or breast feeding experience, or any other perinatal trauma.
~ Specialist support if you have suffered a birth injury (iike a tear, episiotomy, prolapse, incontinence, any ongoing pain - including phantom pain, nerve damage pain, unrepaired tears) as a Birth Injury Recovery Practitioner
I offer these services in-person in and around York,UK or anywhere in the world via Zoom or Skype.
What is birth trauma?
For all of us the transition to being a parent is a huge life event. When birth is difficult, this can leave mothers and parents starting their journey feeling vulnerable and distressed. Birth trauma is a spectrum of feeling, it is subjective. Simply put if you feel that any part of your birth experience was traumatic then you had a traumatic trauma. There is a very big misconception that birth trauma only occurs if you had a difficult, a long, or medicalised, or emergency birth - this is not true. Any woman can be left traumatized by her birth if she feels she was helpless, or out of control, or was being talked at not too, her wishes were not respected, her body was not respected, she was not treated with kindness, respect or compassion, or she feels overwhelmed by her birth experience.
Trauma is the lasting effect of experiences that are – or feel – life-threatening to you, and they leave a permanent impact on our neurophysiology. A difficult or traumatic birth occurs when some aspect of birth is felt to be traumatic, distressing, and/or fearful. It doesn’t matter what you found difficult, or what type of birth you had, it’s your birth. If something felt fearful, frightening, scary or out of control then that is your story and you feel what you feel. The idea of ‘well you have a healthy baby, you should be grateful’ is not an appropriate response (but is sadly so very often what we are told by well meaning friends or family), and this can lead to you burying your traumatic feelings, rather than dealing with them.
Significant contributing factors to birth trauma often include the following:
Incidence of emergency interventions.
Feelings of intense fear during labour or pregnancy.
An arduous labour in terms of length and intensity.
Not feeling listened to or consulted or feeling loss of control or humiliation during labour or pregnancy.
The event of a distressing birth outcome.
However even a perceived ‘straightforward’ birth can potentially be traumatic if this is your felt experience. Your experience is a valid one, you are your own expert. By taking the time to listen to your needs you will know yourself if there is something about your birthing experience that you can benefit from clearing and resolving.
Partners too can also be traumatised by what they witnessed, and other friends and family members can be affected too.
Birth Trauma is often misdiagnosed as post natal depression and although the two can exist together, they are very different. When a traumatic experience occurs sometimes its memory remains vivid and new, resulting in a heightened ‘fight or flight’ state. The amygdala, the part of the brain continuously on the lookout for danger becomes permanently hyper vigilant and over protective leading to that old memory still affecting our perceptions and behaviours in the now. So what you are experiencing is not a mental illness, but a response to an abonormal event.
So some of the signs that you may be experiencing birth trauma include:
Having flashbacks, nightmares or persistent memories about the birth
Emotional distress over anything that reminds you of birth - including anniversaries, birthdays, hearing other women's birth stories
Avoidance of activities like baby groups, or places you might be forced to think about birth
Hyper-vigilence
Irritability
Feeling of anxiety
Trouble sleeping
Fear of having anymore children
How to know if you may need help resolving your experience?
You may call it ‘difficult’ and not ‘traumatic’, the word you use is not itself important. The most important thing to ask yourself is 'does this memory still affect me now?' Ask yourself these questions:
Do I experience a strong emotional response whenever I recall that memory now?
Do my feelings around that memory negatively influence behaviours & decisions I am making in the now?
What would be different if I no longer experienced those difficult emotions associated with that memory?
Considering your answers to these questions may well give you a good insight into whether resolving difficult feelings around a past memory might be useful for you.
Is Birth Trauma Common?
Yes. Sadly you are not alone. Currently around 30% of all women find some aspect of their birth traumatic or distressing, which equates to around 200,000 women per year in the UK. That is a lot of women starting the journey to motherhood feeling difficult and overwhelming emotions. And it is on the rise. We don't yet have the statistics for partners and staff but we know that they are impacted too. Yet, birth trauma is still not well recognised or identified.
Birth Trauma and the feelings and emotions it leaves is not the same as postnatal depression (PND), or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Often unfortunately birth trauma is not recognised by GP’s, health visitors or other health professionals. It does use you not mean that it is not valid or important, and help is available so you feel better emotionally - because you are important.
Birth trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following childbirth, has been acknowledged by clinicians for many years but was only written into the NICE Guidelines in 2014. This saw the inclusion of tokophobia (fear of childbirth), PTSD, antenatal depression and anxiety disorders and a definition of traumatic birth:
“Traumatic birth includes births, whether preterm or full term which are physically traumatic….and births that are experienced as traumatic, even when the delivery is obstetrically straightforward.” NICE Guidelines
This last fact is crucial - the experience of trauma is completely subjective. However your birth might appear to others, you can feel traumatised by your birth. I want to help women overcome these feelings to be able to feel better in themselves, because motherhood is hard enough without buried traumatic feelings too.
Birth Injury Support and relief
A new specialist service to support you mentally and emotionally after a birth injury (like a tear, episiotomy, prolapse, incontinence, any ongoing pain - including phantom pain, nerve damage pain, unrepaired tears). I really want to take break the taboo about birth injuries, to stop women and birthing people being silenced, and suffering physically and emotionally with their injury.
Birth Injury is an area that is not spoken about enough both antenatally and postnatally. We need to be more honest and open with women and birthing people so they can be more prepared in pregnancy (one of the reasons I created my Pelvic Floor online course) and get the support they need to recover after birth.
You are sadly not alone if you have experienced a birth injury, but it can feel that way. Did you know that 90% of women will experience some kind of tear as a result of their first birth experience. And whilst many of these tears or episiotomies heal well and cause no future concern, for lots of women this is not the case. There are can be ongoing physical symptoms relating to tears and episiotomies, including phantom pain, nerve damage pain, unrepaired or mis-repaired tears and incontinence (urine and faecal).
Additionally 1 in 2 women will experience a prolapse after childbirth and some women experience both problems with tears and with prolapse.
Most women and birthing people will experience devastating issues with their emotional and mental health as a result of birth injury. Not only is this common problem with birth injury a cultural taboo but also accessing appropriate treatment can also be an ongoing, traumatic battle too. Support is often lacking, but it is available and is important to seek out if you need it.
As well as the unfolding difficulties of living with a prolapse or functional issues with tears or episiotomies, you can also experience:
A loss of self-esteem and dignity
A loss of trust and confidence in your body
Self-blame and shame about the injury
A feeling of hopelessness about future health
Anxiety about future health worsening
A negative impact on intimacy and relationships
A disconnection from your body
The sessions I offer can support you with many things, including (but not limited to):
reconnecting with your body in a positive, forgiving and loving way that supports healing and recovery on an emotional level
release feeling of blame, shame and guilt.
reestablishing trust and confidence in your body
understanding your pelvic floor postnatally and motivation with pelvic floor exercises and healthy lifestyle choices by using relaxation, conditioning and visualisation exercises.
provide a safe space to talk and be listened to about problems with pelvic floor function, health and sex.
Please email me for more details about these services and support or to book session(s).
Why a healthy baby is not ALL that matters
This phrase is repeated so often, and new mothers hear it over and over again from friends and family - “But all that matters is a healthy baby”. Often the moment a mother begins to open up and say that having their baby was difficult or even traumatic, these words are thrown back at them. Sometimes they even find they are saying it to themselves: “Giving birth was awful, but at least I got my healthy baby, that’s all that matters.”
And this is wrong. Because a healthy baby is not ALL that matters. Yes when a woman gives birth, a healthy baby is absolutely the most important thing. But it is not ALL that matters.
Women matter too.
When women are told that a healthy baby is all that matters, we often silence them. We are saying that their feelings do not matter, and that even though the birth may have left them feeling hurt, shocked, traumatised or even violated, they should not complain because their baby is healthy and this is the only important thing.
Not only do we turn a blind eye to the woman’s very valid feelings, but by saying everyone is healthy and should be grateful we also ignore the complex relationship between mother and baby, and the impact of the birth experience on the future mental and physical health of both mother and baby. And that is why a healthy baby is not ALL that matters.
Mothers matter, fathers matter, and what you feel about your birth is valid and should be heard, acknowledged and accepted with kindness, compassion and without judgement and defensiveness. And if additional support is required then that is important for you to access it - not to feel you should just ‘get on with it and be grateful’. That’s why I am offering you this service. Because sadly it is much needed. You are not alone.
You can read more about this in this great article: ‘Why a healthy baby is not ALL that matters’ in this article by Milli Hill
Working with me - my services
Birth Debrief / Listening Service
My offer is to help you be able to emotionally feel better, and not to be re triggered about a not positive birth or postnatal experience.
I offer a single one off ‘listening’ session giving you time to simply tell you story which I will listen to in a compassionate, kind, non-judgemental and open way. This single session may be enough. I will also share with you in this session some practices and techniques that might help you going forward, and provide you with some guided relaxation and meditation MP3’s that can be helpful too.
For this service a 90 minute session is £65
Sessions are usually held online via Zoom. Meeting at a consulting space in York is now possible if you prefer, but there is an additional fee of £14 an hour to cover room hire costs.
3-Step Rewind trauma relieF
I also more complete programme of three sessions based on the 3-step rewind technique to work through a process that can help you lift the heavy feelings and symptoms that can remain after a difficult or traumatic birth, post natal, fertility or breast feeding experience, or any other perinatal trauma. 3-step rewind is a deep relaxation technique that naturally activates a person’s own ability to heal themselves. Using simple but effective steps to move you through your past traumatic experience, through to understanding it’s current impact on your day to day life, before looking ahead to a future that you desire. It is designed to help your mind to reprocess difficult or traumatic feelings associated with the memory.Put simply it moves the memory from the emotional fear centre of the brain (which is continuing to trigger the difficult feelings you are experiencing), into your long term memory - so it no longer trigger you and difficult feelings. Please get in touch with me and I can send you more information on how I use this process, and how it works.
Eight NHS hospitals now use 3-step rewind as part of their perinatal mental health pathway, sadly it’s not available locally at present.
In addition to the 3-step rewind process I will listen to your story (if you want to share it, but you don’t have to) which in itself can be a hugely beneficial to help you feel supported, heard, and to let go of things you’ve been holding onto to. In addition I will also share with you in the final session some practices and techniques that might help you going forward, and provide you with some guided relaxation and meditation MP3’s that can be helpful too.
A series of three sessions (sessions one and two are up to 90 minutes each, session three is usually 30 to 60 minutes) is currently available at the special price of just £125 in total. (full value of this service is over £225). Payment plans are also available, please just ask. I don’t want finances to be a barrier to getting the support you need.
Sessions are usually held online via Zoom, for clients anywhere in the UK or around the world. Meeting at a consulting space in York is now possible if you prefer, but there is an additional fee of £14 an hour to cover room hire costs.
Birth Injury Support & Relief
For this service a 90 minute session is £65
Sessions are usually held online via Zoom, for clients anywhere in the UK or around the world. Meeting at a lovely space in York (city centre) is now possible if you prefer, but there is an additional fee of £14 an hour to cover room hire costs.
Contact me to learn more about these services and how they might help you, or to book session(s). All contact of course in strictest confidence. Email susan@formodernmothers.com or click the button below
Feedback from Mothers…
“The difference this has made to my current pregnancy is huge. I can now engage more with both medical professionals but more importantly with myself and my baby”
“You have been so amazing helping me through my past trauma, I’d recommend this to anyone who finds it difficult to move on from a birth experience. I don’t think I realised how affected I’d been by my first birth until I fell pregnant again. Doing the 3 step rewind and hypnobirthing has helped me so much. I’m weeks away from having my second baby now and feeling more and more ready every day. I couldn’t even talk about it four months ago, so I’m so glad I found you.” ”
“Such an amazingly unmet need and I can’t think of anyone more suited to helping women. Through doing this with you, it most definitely helped me move past my awful perinatal experience with C and go on to have the best experience of my life birthing K and our wonderful 4th trimester. I will never be able to thank you enough”
“the 3 step rewind that Susan does is absolutely brilliant and worth every penny. I had a traumatic birth and was still suffering flashbacks etc after 9 months... I probably still would be now if I hadn’t done the 3 step rewind.
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“To be able to now talk about the birth of my son, without getting upset is really lifechanging. I never thought after all this time I could do this.”
“Just wanted to thank you again so much for the sessions and how much they have helped me. I’m still quite amazed by it all!”
Other support after a difficult birth:
If you would like support, you can speak with your GP or another healthcare professional, it can be helpful to have first looked at some of these resources too.
If you feel you are in crisis and cannot cope with your current feelings please seek an urgent appointment with your GP of visit A&E.
In a crisis you can also call the Samaritans, free 24 hours a day on 116 123 from any phone or visit their website https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan
Shout is a 24/7 text service, free on all major mobile networks, for anyone in crisis anytime, anywhere. It’s a place to go if you’re struggling to cope and you need immediate help. Text 85258. https://giveusashout.org/
Other resources include:
There are great resources on the PANDAS Foundation who provide brilliant Pre and Post Natal Mental Health support Their website is http://www.pandasfoundation.org.uk/
PANDAS also have a free helpline you can call. It is available from 9am – 8pm every day. Their dedicated volunteer team are on hand to offer support, advice and can help to signpost to other organisations if necessary. PANDAS free Helpline number : 0808 1961 776
You can also access your records, and have a debrief with a midwife from the NHS to go over them. https://www.birthrights.org.uk/factsheets/accessing-your-records/ For some people this is helpful, but for others it can re-trigger the trauma and is not helpful. So please be mindful before proceeding with this option.
You can also take you records for an independent debrief, with an independent midwife or a trained Doula. This can give you an independent view of the birth or other events.
If you want to make a complaint there’s details of how to do that here - https://www.birthrights.org.uk/factsheets/making-a-complaint/
If you are in or around York, UK then you can also self-refer to the local IAPT team: https://yorkandselbyiapt.co.uk/
You can also access this online counselling service for FREE if you like in the York hospital trust area - www.qwell.io