Can birth preparation reduce birth trauma?
Guest article written by Beth Kitt, a midwife and mum of 4. Beth is also the founder of The Bump to Baby Chapter one of the UK’s leading midwife-developed hypnobirthing and antenatal resources.
Reducing birth trauma isn’t just about having a “good” birth. It’s not so you can walk away thinking “wow that was easy!”. It doesn’t mean your birth went exactly how you wanted it too. And it can also not mean you had a quicker physical recovery afterwards.
The effects of birth trauma go so much deeper than any of this. Having a traumatic birth is something that can keep you up at night, it can affect your relationship, it can have lasting negative impact on your mental health, it can impact if you want more children in the future, and it can affect how you bond with your baby.
Let me start by saying – birth preparation can reduce trauma BUT it is not a lack of birth preparation that causes trauma. It is really important that you understand that.
Birth preparation can help you to stack the odds in your favour for a better birth.When it comes to birth I truly do not believe “ignorance is bliss”. I have had many women speak to me over my lifetime telling me that when they went into birth they felt so out of control because they had no idea what to expect. Understanding physiologically what will happen during birth means you know what to expect when you go into labour. It means you understand the stages of labour and what may happen during each of these. It means you understand what is currently happening, and what is expected to come next.
Next up is understanding your options. Babies unfortunately don’t get a copy of your birth plan and things can deviate from your initial plan. But – understanding why things are deviating, knowing you have choices, understanding risks and benefits – all this can help you to remain in control. A lack of control is a huge contributing factor to trauma and being able to keep a degree of control, even in emergency situations, can be paramount in how you process birth afterwards.
Another part of birth prep is reading a diverse range of positive birth stories. Not the horror stories many women have heard on repeat for much of their lives. But equally, not just straightforward births where everything goes to plan. Diverse birth stories. Stories where the birth deviated from the original and the birthing person chose an induction, had an epidural, opted for an instrumental birth or caesarean – all the while still feeling positive.
Don’t just take my word for it…
One study investigated the effects of antenatal education on birth fear, depression, anxiety, stress, birth experience, and type of birth in first-time pregnant women (Cankaya and Simsak, 2021). The study found that the group who received antenatal education had less birth fear, depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms than the control group who received no antenatal education. More vaginal births also occurred in the antenatal education group compared to the control group.
Another study found that antenatal education that includes techniques to reduce fear of the pain of child birth had positive benefits on the mother’s mental health (Sercekus and Baskale, 2015). It also found improvements in their birth experience and a reduction in postnatal depression.
Birth preparation really can be a gamechanger for birth and beyond. Whether you take a class, do an online course like The Birth Chapter, or you take it upon yourself to do some DIY birth prep – I truly believe it is so important.
References
Cankaya and Simsak - Effects of Antenatal Education on Fear of Birth, Depression, Anxiety, Childbirth Self-Efficacy, and Mode of Delivery in Primiparous Pregnant Women: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Study - PubMed (nih.gov)
Sercekus and Baskale - Effects of antenatal education on fear of childbirth, maternal self-efficacy and parental attachment - ScienceDirect
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