29/11/2025
When I sat down with my client S at her first birth trauma appointment, she told me that the birth of her son hadn’t gone at all to plan.
She had planned a water birth on the midwife led unit and wanted to use the hypnobirthing techniques she had learned with the support of her husband.
After 2 days of labour without birthing her baby, she was told she would need a caesarean. When she asked for more time, she was told no because her baby would be getting tired. She told me she was made to feel guilty for putting her wish to have a vaginal birth above the potential harm to her baby. S said to me she was made to feel like a bad mum before she’d even become a mum.
When I asked S how she felt about her caesarean birth, she told me she felt “fine”. She told me that, in theatre, everyone was nice. The birth wasn’t awful. She also told me she was happy that her baby was born healthy.
Her trauma wasn’t about the caesarean birth. It wasn’t even from not getting her vaginal birth.
The trauma came from how she was treated. It came from feeling unheard, dismissed and ignored. Her trauma was as a result of feeling alone and out of control at a crucial time in her birth experience.
“I didn’t need the perfect water birth, I just needed basic human compassion”.
As birth trauma practitioners what we hear so much is that trauma is rarely about the birth itself. It’s about how you are made to feel about your birth.
You deserve to feel valid in your wishes.
You deserve to feel heard and respected.
You deserve to feel supported by compassionate care.
The takeaway is: if you’re heading into birth make sure the way you want to be cared for is communicated to your team and you have a guardian for this by your side.
If you resonated with any of S’s feelings, you deserve a safe space to unpick those feelings and process your experience.
Comment BIRTH below and we’ll send you information on how to start your processing journey and preparing for a better birth.
