How to Heal a Bad Birth
- mydoulahannah
- Jul 18, 2023
- 2 min read
This is one of my absolute FAVORITE books that I have read about birth. How to Heal a Bad Birth is written by Melissa Bruijn and Deby Gould. It walks you through healing from your birth. Even if you haven't given birth, I think that it's an excellent read to prepare for birth.
The authors talk about how EVERY woman is a goddess for giving birth. Even if you have a C-section. I became passionate about supporting all births after reading this book. I totally thought that a non-medicated, possibly a home birth is the best and only way to go. But sometimes those are traumatic too. So, if you have given birth in any way, you are a goddess and you deserve that title.
This book is really great if you are preparing for birth because it talks about mindset and all the things that stop labor. I think that we often forget one thing about birth and it is so prevalent that we don't realize it's happening. Fear. Fear makes labor stop. Oxytocin is the hormone that makes labor happen and progress, but that hormone is blocked by adrenaline, which is released when you are scared. If you don't feel safe, you are not going to have a trauma-free birth.
Something that resonated with me was fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response to fear. I know that you have heard of fight or flight. Everyone talks about it when we are in a stressful situation, but have you heard of fawn or freeze? I hadn't and I definitely recognize it from my own birth.
Fawning is when you people please. You are scared, so you do anything that someone else says to be safer. I don't know about you, but I am not a fighter and there isn't a way to really run from a hospital when you are in labor.
Freezing is when you kind of take yourself out of the situation. Like hiding emotions and feelings or "checking out" mentally. I imagine you would feel numb. I wonder if you have experienced that during birth.
So what does a trauma-free birth look like? It’s having a birth that you feel like you are in control of and you are leading the conversation. You don’t need to be convinced that this is the right path for you to choose, you will choose it. You know what is best when you are given all of the information. You can have an empowering C-section or an empowering home birth.
My favorite quote is
“Any path to birth can be good if you have the right information and support so that you can experience those good feelings.” -How to Heal a Bad Birth
Sources:
How to Heal a Bad Birth is available on Amazon for $30 new or you can buy it used or on Kindle for about $10
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