Understanding Birth Trauma and 4 Grounding Techniques to Support Your Healing Journey
A traumatic experience can be explained as any experience in which you were caught off guard and did not know how to handle it. It often involves feeling overwhelmed, with a nervous system response that is working to help you combat or survive the moment. Each of us responds differently to different scenarios. What is traumatic for someone else, may not be traumatic for you and vice versa. We don’t get to decide what qualifies as trauma for someone as it can be anything that leaves you feeling disempowered and ill equipped to handle a situation.
You may already be placing the pieces together as to how this could be relevant to birthing scenarios. Giving birth is a physical trauma to the body. It is a beautiful, miraculous event that also involves intense wear and tear. To place this collectively into one word, I would describe it as intense. When experiencing this intensity, it may be hard to make decisions, voice opinions, and know what your needs are. It is also within this intensity that it is imperative that you feel heard, supported, and empowered. You are the one birthing. In whatever way your baby enters the world, your needs still matter.
When people experience trauma in birth, they often describe their experience as disempowered. When others make decisions on your behalf without gaining consent or checking in with your needs, this often results in this feeling. So if we pair together the intensity of birth with decisions about your body being made for you, we can often surmise that this will be stored in the brain as a trauma.
Trauma in birth can additionally happen when all of your needs are heard and met. Your team can gain consent and explain procedures being done for you, but you still feel shocked and scared in the process. This may have been your first time giving birth, or something unplanned happened and you feared for your well-being or your baby’s. In those moments, everything can feel pressured and decisions are often made quickly.
You are not alone if you feel this way. In these experiences, many mothers will have recurrent flashbacks to their labor and birth. Your brain is often trying to put the pieces of what happened back together. It’s trying to feel in control and prepared, because the shock of it all is still rattling your system.
It is of utmost importance in these scenarios that you find ways to hold compassion for yourself. Imagine if your closest friend, relative, or loved one experienced what you did. How would you speak to them? Most often it’s with much more compassion than you would give yourself. Practice speaking to yourself the way you would speak to this loved one.
This was not your fault and you did your absolute best.
It is also imperative that you find a safe space to process this. We can identify a safe space as one without judgment, with validation of feelings, and with a feeling of trust that this person holds the best of intentions for you. Maybe you have a partner, friend, or relative that can hold this space for you. This is something that the team at Eastern Shore Counseling are trained in and can provide to help you navigate through this trauma.
You do not have to continuously experience these trauma symptoms. At the very least, they can be reduced. Most often, people want to ignore trauma symptoms, hoping that if they keep distracting themselves, the trauma will go away. The therapeutic process will be more focused on observing it, walking through it, and learning how to regulate your nervous system.
As you navigate through trauma with your support system, there are tools that can help you feel secure along the way. These grounding techniques work to regulate the nervous system so that you can work towards feeling safe.
Here are 4 grounding techniques to support your healing journey:
Belly Breathing: Taking deep breaths, as simple as it may sound, can be an effective way to help the body and mind feel safe. When we breathe deeply, our body sends signals to the brain telling it that we are in a safe place. When you feel panicked, your breathing is often rapid and shallow. Changing this breathing pattern can ultimately change the way you feel. There are different forms of breathing techniques, but in this case, it’s often most effective to practice a relaxation technique often referred to as 4:7:8 breathing. You’ll want to take a few regular breaths to start and then begin the practice, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. To begin, you will breathe in for the count of 4. You’ll want to feel your belly expand as you breathe deeply. You can hold one hand on your chest and the other on your belly for reference. After breathing in for the count of 4, you will hold your breath for the count of 7. And finally, you will breathe out for the count of 8. On this breath out, you may experience greater benefit by making this forceful to create a “woosh” noise as you release.
Breathwork is a useful tool that can be used anywhere, at any time. The more you practice it, the better your body responds to it. You can practice this routinely throughout the day as well as in times of heightened stress.
2. Connecting to the Ground: Have you ever noticed yourself becoming more clumsy when feeling anxious? Thoughts racing through your mind can be distracting. With such great focus on these thoughts and fears, there’s often a disconnection to your body and surroundings. You’ll want to pull that energy circling through your head, back into your body. This way you can feel rooted and sure of your footing. You can do this both indoors or outside. You can stand, sit or lay down (whichever is possible or feels better for you). As you engage in this activity, place your focus on the parts of your body connecting with the ground. Pay attention to sensations of temperature and texture. Imagine a magnetic pull running through your body and into the earth. Feel the ground securely holding you in place, keeping you safe, and staying still for you.
Practicing this regularly will create a better balance of energy in your body and allow feelings of safety to cultivate.
3. See (5), Feel (4), Hear (3), Smell (2), Taste (1): This is another technique that allows you to break from racing thoughts and panic by pulling your focus into the moment with sensory input. All you need to do in this activity is observe. Wherever you are, notice 5 things that you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. Here’s an example: I can see shelves, a lamp, a clock, an end table, and a candle. I can feel a hair tie on my wrist, a chair against my body, wind from the fan, and a glass of water in my hand. I can hear the sound of a fan, cars on the road, and a dog barking. I can smell the scent of a vanilla candle, and fresh air blowing in from outside. I can taste peppermint from my chewing gum.
4. Hydrate: In a state of panic, people often experience dry mouth. You can help reverse this feeling of panic by creating the opposite sensation. Feeling hydrated is one way to signal to your body that you are in a safe place. You can do this by actively trying to increase the saliva in your mouth or you can slowly drink water.