My Experience with Hypnotherapy for Childbirth PTSD

I had a really great hypnotherapy session to help me procession my childbirth experience.

The reason why I decided to reach out to a therapist is because I was having random flashbacks to moments of my labor and would start crying. I could be washing dishes and be just fine and all of the sudden have tears well up. Or I’d get out of the shower and see my scar on my stomach and get emotional. I couldn’t think of the labor without tears welling up in my eyes.

I also had feelings of guilt associated with the birth. Guilt of not having a vaginal birth (because I heard it’s part of what contributes to a baby’s healthy immune system). Guilt of not doing skin to skin as soon as she was born. Guilt of not being able to go to her and hold her when she would cry due to my c-section recovery and pregnancy onset carpel tunnel syndrome.

I was also having feelings of mourning/loss. I felt like I ran a marathon and just when the finish line was in sight, I was told that I couldn’t finish and someone carried me over the line. So having a c-section and not having a vaginal birth kind of felt like I had an “incomplete” birth experience. Did I cross the finish line? Yes. Did puttering out with the finish line in sight and being carried over it make me feel good about the outcome? No. I was also mourning missing out on that initial bonding experience through skin to skin.

Here’s what the hypnotherapy experience was like

I didn’t really know what to expect from hypnotherapy. I had doubts and was skeptical that I could be hypnotized, but I discovered that hypnotherapy isn’t that stereotypical concept where the hypnotist puts you into a trance.

The therapist started with a visualization to help me relax and then, while my eyes were closed, I shared with her a play by play of what happened during my labor, starting from the moment my water broke at home.

Any time I would start to get a bit emotional or find myself choking on my words as I shared the experience with her, she’d stop me and ask me what was coming up for me in that moment. This really helped me process all of the elements - small and big - that contributed to the overall traumatic experience.

Here’s what the therapist help me unpack

I didn’t realize how many elements were at play in my trauma, so it was great to have it untangled.

Here are the 5 elements that were each challenging on their own, that I was experiencing simultaneously:

1. How I felt about the midwife

   I started off with a wonderful midwife but then there was a shift change and I had a different midwife assist me for the majority of the intense labor. I felt that she lacked empathy. There were small indications of this, for example she told me to put my underwear on when I was in the thick of intense contractions and could bend down nor lift each leg to do so. The previous midwife who helped me lent me her shoulder to help me keep my balance and pulled my underwear up to my knees to where I could pull the rest up myself. The midwife who lacked empathy caused there to be multiple occasions where my focus was taken away from the labor and onto how to communicate with her.

2. How I felt about the doctors

   I wished the doctors were more direct in their communication. They would say that it seems my natural labor would be difficult, but they weren’t adamant that I’d have surgery. This made me feel more pressure and confusion on what to do because it wasn’t completely clear that I should do the intervention.

3. The pressure of decision making

   This is related to the point above, but I felt like I was getting asked many questions when my head wasn’t clear. Making life-impacting decisions while being in so much pain was scary.

4. Feeling of being unprepared for interventions

   I was pretty stubborn about my birth plan being non-medicated. But even so, I wish that the doctors and midwives had encouraged me to have a plan B so that I could visualize and mentally prepare myself for an intervention. Since I hadn’t really considered interventions beforehand, I didn’t feel like I had time to wrap my head around what was about to happen.

5. The actual physical pain of transitioning from natural childbirth to having a c-section

   And of course, the physical pain was tough to handle; particularly the 30 minutes between deciding to have a c-section and having the c-section, when I mentally had to tell myself to avoid pushing and to stay still. I’ve never felt that level of “gaman” (self-control) before

   How I’m doing now

   I haven’t had flashbacks to the birth and I find I am able to talk about it without getting emotional. It’ll still take time to heal, but my aim for hypnotherapy was to process things to where I could be functional without getting emotional so it was definitely a success!