What to do during a traumatic labor and birth to reduce the likelihood of later Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
By Penny Simkin, PT, Founding Member, PATTCh
Between 25 and 34% of women report that their children’s births were traumatic, even though the staff and their support team may not perceive it that way. Birth trauma includes physical injury, danger, or death to mother or baby, or the perception thereof by the mother or partner. It also includes feelings of extreme fear, aloneness, disrespect, lack of control or helplessness.
The good news is that most traumatic birth experiences do not result in the syndrome of PTSD. The feelings (often called Post-Traumatic Stress Effects or Symptoms), associated with traumatic births usually fade in intensity, and become resolved with time, empathic listening, and support from key people in their lives. We may be able to increase the numbers of women who do not develop PTSD if we can identify those who have pre-existing risk factors for PTSD, and recognize when risk factors occur during labor. Appropriate actions, words, and continuous supportive attendance may reduce or reverse the symptoms and prevent PTSD.
Previous posts by my PATTCh colleagues have described pre-existing risk factors. If the caregiver, the doula, and/or the woman/couple know about these ahead of time, they may be able to strategize preventive approaches to reduce the likelihood that the risk factors will occur. In this post, I will discuss risk factors that may arise during labor that are associated with a negative or traumatic birth experience, and also describe specific intrapartum words or actions that are designed to reduce the trauma and prevent PTSD from developing.What you need to know about the childbearing woman:
- Her wishes for her birth and expectations of herself, her support team, and the caregiving staff, including her preferences for pain management, routine interventions, and for the care and feeding of her newborn.
- Any issues, fears, doubts, or concerns about labor, her support team, her caregiver, nursing staff, and the environment for her birth
- Her preferences regarding participation in her care and decision-making.
By being aware of these risk factors for traumatic birth, you may be able to put a stop to some risk factors or minimize them at the time, thus reducing the odds of future PTSD. Such actions may even transform her perceptions from negative to neutral or positive, meaning that she will not later describe her birth as traumatic.
Table 1 lists some of the risk factors and ways to reduce their negative impact.
Once the birth is over, before leaving the family, be sure to comment positively on something that she did or said that impressed you, with the intention of planting a positive interpretation of her role, especially if there were traumatic or negative aspects to the birth. Later, as she ruminates on the negatives, she may also recall your kind words, and feel better about herself.
Birth is not over when the baby is born. It goes on and on in the woman’s mind. If the birth was traumatic, it takes longer to come to terms with it. Sometimes PTSD develops. My suggestions in this blog are intended first, to lessen the likelihood of the birth being traumatic, and, second, if the birth is traumatic, to intervene during labor with the intention of alleviating the trauma and reduce her chances of developing PTSD.
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Unexpected complications requiring a change from the care preferences
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
- Explain what is happening and what is needed to correct the situation. Reassure if appropriate.
- Encourage questions and discuss/consider possible alternatives.
- Empathize with her feelings and questions, and acknowledge the difficulty in adjusting expectations.
- Focus on what she needs to do: “What we must do now is focus on… (keeping a rhythm, the baby’s well-being, handling this procedure, etc.)”
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Unwanted routine interventions; lack of understanding of or disagreement over reasons; feeling coercedPowerlessness, being discounted.
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
- Help her learn ahead of time about policies of caregiver or hospital regarding usual routines.
- Negotiate, compromise, accept the usual routines, or change caregivers.
- During labor is a difficult time to discuss routines. Use techniques in box above.
- If inevitable, help her adjust and rise above her disappointment, to protect her memory of the birth.
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Loss of control over responses to pain (panic, loss of rhythm, crying out, writhing, dissociation).
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
- Take charge routine: calmly give her undivided attention, and guide her to maintain a rhythm during contractions.
- Consider her stated wishes regarding pain medications.
- If she is motivated to avoid pain medications, pre-plan a “code word” to say if labor is too long or difficult and she changes her mind and wants pain medications. This allows her to complain without people misinterpreting her complaints as a request for medication.
- If she doesn’t say it, her team supports natural birth. (The code word is not needed if she plans to use pain meds.)
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Perceived poor treatment, disrespect, lack of communication from staff
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
- Encourage woman/couple to speak to staff, or the charge nurse or caregiver.
- Describe the dissatisfaction; ask for another nurse or a “fresh start.”
- Don’t make the problem worse.
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Poor support from partner, doula, family
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
Suggest ways they may help; ask the woman if she needs some time without others in the room; explain the woman’s need for support and kindness.
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Mental defeat, unable to continue, hopeless
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
- Empathize and try to rally her back into participating: “We need you. Don’t stop now. You’re almost there (if it’s true.)”
- Explain what will happen next, and help her accept an epidural, a cesarean or instrumental delivery, if she is too exhausted to continue.
- Support her decision.
Risk factor during labor for traumatic birth experience:
Profound opposite of how she wanted her birth to be.
Preventive or corrective action by partner, doula, nurse, or caregiver:
- Support her as well as possible through the difficult labor.
- Recognize the above risk factors as signs that she may later feel her birth was traumatic, and offer opportunities for postpartum support and counseling.
Birth is not over when the baby is born. It goes on and on in the woman’s mind. If the birth was traumatic, it takes longer to come to terms with it. Sometimes PTSD develops. My suggestions in this blog are intended first, to lessen the likelihood of the birth being traumatic, and, second, if the birth is traumatic, to intervene during labor with the intention of alleviating the trauma and reduce her chances of developing PTSD.
Penny Simkin, PT, is a childbirth educator, doula, birth counselor, author, and one of the founders of Doulas of North America (DONA), and PATTCh. Penny is also physical therapist who has specialized in childbirth education and labor support since 1968. She estimates she has prepared over 10,000 women, couples, and siblings for childbirth. She has assisted hundreds of women or couples through childbirth as a doula. She is the author of many books and articles on birth for both parents and professionals
Currently, she serves on several boards of consultants and editorial boards and serves as senior faculty at the Simkin Center for allied Birth Vocations at Bastyr University which was named in her honor.Today her practice consists of childbirth education, birth counseling, and labor support, combined with a busy schedule of conferences and workshops. Penny and her husband, Peter, have four grown children, eight grandchildren, ranging in age from a 6 to 23 years, and a pug, Hugo.