What is a Traumatic Birth Experience?

While the miracle of birth is often a beautiful process for the families of newborns, it can also be distressing. Parents can be left feeling frightened about having more children or worrying if they could have done something differently. In cases of medical negligence or malpractice, they may even require help from an experienced attorney to find closure in their situation.

According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 45% of new mothers report having a traumatic birth experience. This is when an individual involved in the birthing process believes that the mother’s life or her baby’s life is in danger or that there is a serious threat to the mother’s or baby’s physical or emotional well-being. This trauma is not limited to the delivery room, and birthing parents can suffer the effects long after they have returned to their lives.

Causes of a Traumatic Birth Experience

One of the most common causes of a traumatic birth experience is prolonged labor or failure to progress. For first babies, labor can last up to 20 hours before it’s considered prolonged. Second or following babies are considered delayed after 14 hours. Those giving birth can experience physical pain, as well as stress, worry, and fear that something will harm their child or themselves.

Complications in the baby’s positioning can also lead to a traumatic birth experience. If a baby is in a breech position (feet first instead of head first), this can cause great stress to the parent and endanger the life of the baby. While doctors can try to reverse a breech position, it can be more difficult if the baby is too large to fit through the birthing canal. This might result in an emergency caesarian section, heightening the birthing parent’s fear and concern for their child – and coming with an additional set of birth injury risks.

Traumatic birth experiences are often reported when the child suffers a birth injury. This can occur during forceps and vacuum-assisted deliveries, by physical injuries during childbirth, or in any other incident where the baby is harmed due to a medical error. After a difficult delivery, there is nothing more devastating than discovering your child might suffer a lifelong health condition like cerebral palsy.

Symptoms of a Traumatic Birth Experience

After a traumatic birth experience, many parents suffer from an array of symptoms. Commonly, they experience nightmares, flashbacks, angry outbreaks, anxiety, and depression. They can even develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Postpartum Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PPTSD). Birthing parents can even have an overlap of PPTSD and postpartum depression (PPD).

The combination of these disorders can mean a substantial mental health crisis for a parent who also feels the pressure of caring for their newborn child. The effects of a traumatic birth experience can last for weeks or months after the delivery. This can make it incredibly difficult for a person if and when they give birth to additional children.

Common indications of PPTSD include:

• Anxiety that worsens over time
• Avoiding the people, locations, or experiences associated with the birth trauma
• Depression that does not resolve within a few weeks
• Insomnia and other sleep disturbances
• Hypervigilance
• Lashing out at others unexpectedly
• Increasing anxiety or panic attacks
• Reliving the traumatic birth experience through flashbacks and nightmares

Postpartum depression (PPD) can appear with symptoms such as:

• Anger
• Eating disorders (eating too much, too little, or not at all)
• Difficulty maintaining relationships
• Feelings of being overwhelmed
• Ignoring basic care tasks, such as bathing, grooming, or post-birth care
• Insomnia
• Low self-esteem about their bodies or their lives
• Mild to extreme anxiety
• Negative thoughts or statements about their ability to care for the child
• Overindulging in alcohol or recreational drugs
• Suicidal ideation or statements

It is critical that parents and their partners seek professional assistance to manage these symptoms and reduce them when possible. Hormonal changes in the body following birth make it even harder for an individual to view their situation objectively. While most of us are taught that birth is a natural and happy event, facing a traumatic birth experience can make us question everything we thought we knew about ourselves.

Ways to Begin Recovering After a Traumatic Birth Experience

A traumatic birth experience can affect your life in ways that feel like a natural disaster. After a hurricane or earthquake, everything is different. Some things are destroyed forever, while others can be rebuilt with time and care. Your mind, emotions, and outlook on life can be substantially harmed by the trauma, in addition to any physical injury you may have suffered.

On top of this, if your child was hurt during the delivery, you will need to adjust your hopes, fears, and dreams about what their life will be like. All of this can challenge your thoughts about what is fair and what your strengths and weaknesses are. You may even find that you begin to doubt your fundamental spiritual beliefs. You will need to assess what happened to you and begin to rebuild, sometimes with entirely new structures to support your mental health.

Talking

During PPTSD and PPD, you may retreat within yourself and spiral through negative thoughts without input from others. This is the equivalent of walking in circles because you are not moving forward. Talking to your partner, friends, and a licensed therapist or counselor can provide valuable insights into how to overcome your negative emotions.

You may also consider attending support groups with others who have experienced traumatic births. Understanding that what you are feeling is common and that there are ways to manage the emotions can be critical to recovering your mental health. Healing from the damage allows you to care for yourself and your child.

Learning How to Manage Your Thoughts and Emotions

In addition to talking with professionals and support groups, you may benefit from attending classes in meditation, yoga, prayer, or other disciplines focused on helping you identify what triggers your trauma. Breathing and awareness techniques can bring you back to the moment when you feel yourself experiencing anxiety or fear. Your therapist may teach you Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) skills to help you balance your thoughts.

Tending to Your Physical Health and Needs

While your mental wellness is usually most affected by a traumatic birth experience, there is no doubt that your body may suffer injury during a difficult delivery. Physical damage and pain are common, and every birthing parent must attend to their own health so they can be strong enough to return to their life. It is crucial that you follow your doctor’s orders for tending any wounds and keep follow-up appointments for yourself and your child.

Seeking Legal Help When Negligence Is Involved

There’s no doubt that many parents feel anger and a need for justice when they believe someone else is at fault for their traumatic birth experience. Many things can go wrong during labor and delivery, and failure to exercise due care and attention may lead to medical negligence or medical malpractice. In these situations, you may benefit from scheduling a free consultation with an experienced birth trauma attorney to discuss your case.

When an investigation shows that other parties are to blame for your injury or that of your child, your birth injury lawyer can assemble evidence to hold them accountable. They can build a solid case that can be used to secure a settlement in a medical malpractice insurance claim or to convince a judge and jury that you were harmed during a lawsuit. Because you could need expensive physical and emotional treatment for months or years, it is worth your time to learn more about how you may be eligible to seek compensation from any liable parties.

Lopez McHugh: Philadelphia Birth Injury Lawyers

A traumatic birth experience is emotionally and physically devastating, particularly if the baby was injured during childbirth. The consequences can affect your entire life and your dreams of having more children. When a skilled Philadelphia birth injury lawyer can identify those at fault, you owe it to yourself and your family to bring a claim against the liable individuals and / or institutions to try to obtain financial relief.

You must act quickly to file a case. The Pennsylvania statute of limitations for a parent’s medical malpractice claims is only two years from the time you discovered the injury. The child’s claims can mature later but evidence if best collected while fresh. If you or someone you know has had a child who suffered any type of birth injury, contact the Philadelphia medical malpractice attorneys at Lopez McHugh LLP to discuss your case and protect your rights.