Do you ever wonder why one person can tell her birth story and seem genuinely traumatized, but another person who had a very similar “kind” of birth is completely fine? Obviously, there are some things that can happen during a birth that would be difficult for anyone to cope with, like if the baby’s life or the mother’s life seems to be in jeopardy. But sometimes a birth that sounds “normal” when you look at the sequence of events can be traumatizing for the mother. What makes the difference between a birth that’s hard to process and one that is satisfying and positive?
Support
One of the first keys to a satisfying birth experience is having a good support team. In fact, research indicates that having continuous support in labor can improve all kinds of outcomes. Sometimes this is just a spouse, partner, or friend, and sometimes this includes additional people like another relative, friend, or doula. But just having support people present isn’t enough. If the people who are supposed to be supporting Mom are fearful, or worse, critical, they can seriously undermine her confidence and ability to birth peacefully.
It’s a good idea to bring people to support you when you give birth, but it’s also a good idea to carefully consider who those people are. Why are they invited to your birth? Are they a calm, reassuring presence, or are you inviting them because they’ve made it clear they will cause drama if they’re not included?
It’s important for the people in the room to be supportive of you. They should believe in you, and their energy should be focused on you, the birthing person, not themselves. They should take their cues from you, helping to meet your needs, not taking charge and telling you what choices you should make. It also really helps if they are not afraid of childbirth. The last thing you need is a Nervous Nelly undermining your confidence.
Respectful Care
Another thing that makes a HUGE difference in how a mother looks back on the experience of giving birth is how she is treated by the professionals on her team. For most people, this means doctors and nurses, but it can also include midwives, both in and out of the hospital, and EMTs or paramedics if emergency personnel are involved (for example if Mom gives birth at home unexpectedly).
One thing that can happen in a birth setting (and other medical settings) is for medical professionals like nurses and doctors to take on a role of authority over the birthing person. This is deeply ingrained in our culture, and sometimes is hard to even recognize because we’re so used to it. And these power dynamics don’t always cause trauma, but they can be at the root of events that DO cause trauma.
When medical professionals talk down to a mother or even scold her, it can do a lot of harm. This can take the form of belittling her wishes (making light of a birth plan), threatening her with a bad outcome if she doesn’t comply, shaming her for asking questions, or even just telling her what to do without discussion or presenting her with options. We know from research on postpartum PTSD that one of the risk factors is coercive or dismissive treatment from care providers.
When medical professionals treat a mother respectfully, on the other hand, they listen to her wishes, they give her information, they allow time (when it’s not a true emergency) to make decisions, and they offer support for the choices she makes. This is closely tied to the next key.
Agency
When a woman is having a baby, she doesn’t lose any of the human or legal rights she had before she became pregnant. She still has the right to make all the choices about her medical care. And when those rights are recognized, when she is treated like a thinking adult who can decide things for herself, even when things don’t go as she wanted, she knows that she had options and that SHE made the choices. It makes a tremendous difference in how the events of a birth are perceived.
When a mother has all of these things–good support, respectful care, and agency–then no matter what path her birth takes, she can look back and feel like her birth unfolded the way it needed to, whether it was completely “natural,” induced, augmented, supported with medical pain relief, or surgical.
Do you feel like there are any other keys to a positive birth? I’d love to hear your ideas. Comment below!
