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Birth Trauma & Therapy

Causes

Birth can be traumatic in different ways. Medical problems can result in interventions that can be frightening. The near death of a mother or baby, heavy bleeding, and emergency operations are examples of situations that can cause psychological trauma. However, emotional difficulties in coping with the pain of childbirth can also cause psychological trauma. Even if others perceive the birth as normal, if the mother perceives it as traumatic, it was traumatic. Childbirth related PTSD can be caused even by a normal birth and should be diagnosed based on symptoms of the mother, not by the events

Diagnosis

What is Birth Trauma?

Signs & Symptoms

Childbirth-related PTSD is not a recognized diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Many women presenting with symptoms of PTSD after childbirth are diagnosed with postpartum depression or adjustment disorders. These diagnoses can lead to inadequate treatment.

Several studies have focused on the impact of emergency caesarean sections. Women who underwent C-section or vaginal delivery reported more symptoms of post traumatic stress compared to women who had an elective caesarean section or a normal vaginal delivery

Birth trauma refers to damage of the tissues and organs of a newly delivered child, often as a result of physical pressure or trauma during childbirth.

Examples of symptoms of childbirth-related post traumatic stress disorder include: intrusive symptoms such as flashbacks and nightmares, as well as symptoms of avoidance (including amnesia for the whole or parts of the event), problems in developing a mother-child attachment.

Management

Treatment

Several interventions can prevent the development of clinically relevant PTSD, however there is a lack of evaluated treatment strategies: provide opportunity to talk about the birth experience, promotion of expression of feelings, responding to patient's questions about the course of birth, connect events with emotions, psycho education about post-traumatic stress symptoms and assessment of self-perceived severity and ability to cope, concrete suggestions like writing down their own birth narrative, and enhancement of stabilizing steps focusing on an interpersonal resources.

Birth games are created in conjunction with birth-traumatized children and their parents, are designed to meet the developmental needs of children, and are conducted in ways that make children feel safe. The games are designed to be fun, to allow for exploration, and to promote self-discovery. They are also designed to lead children to the edges of their birth memories and provide them with options to accept or decline these memories at any time.

1) Parents gently massage the heads and shoulders of their children in ways that simulate the birth passage, thereby activating birth memories and feelings. Children with no birth trauma experience the massage process as relaxing and pleasurable, whereas children with birth trauma tend to play games with the massaging hands (i.e. ducking, dodging, avoiding, pushing, pulling, yanking, and slapping), accessing unresolved birth feelings and memories in the process;

2) Parents form slides by propping their legs up on footrests, encouraging their children to slide down while gentle feather-tip pressure is applied to the sides of the head to simulate the birth passage;

3) Parents kneel side by side on their hands and knees with backs arched toward the ceiling, allowing their children to crawl of their own volition through the resulting tunnels;

4) Parents sit face to face on the floor with legs and arms gently intertwined. Toddlers and children climb in and out of the resulting space while parents offer gentle resistance according to their children's wishes

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