Lack of Support for Birth Trauma in the United States

There is a huge misfortune occurring to women and babies in this society. Birth trauma is greatly misunderstood and rarely believed to be a problem. Other countries such as England and Australia have well organized groups to help combat and heal from this real problem. Too often women who have suffered a traumatic birth are told to "just move on", to "get over it" to "take accountability for their choices", that "they have a healthy baby so what is the big deal". This is demeaning to women and our culture as a whole. How a woman and baby experiences birth is trans formative for their family and society as a whole. I have no doubt that if more births were gentle and peaceful the family unit would be as well.

After my own traumatic birth(see http://completebeginnings.blogspot.com/2010/09/birth-of-my-third-everett-roger.html)it took so much work and healing to come to a place where I felt like I could parent and welcome another child (see http://completebeginnings.blogspot.com/2010/09/birth-of-my-fourth-scoot-october-24th.html).
My experiences were transformative. The healing was powerful. I feel the need to help other women come to a place of peace and healing regarding their own births.

I have several plans in motion and encourage my sisters in birth to consider taking similar strides in their communities and practice.
*I have started a local support group for birth trauma.

*I am attending a series of trainings over the next three years to become a practitioner of Somatic Experiencing (see www.healingtrauma.com) as a way to help even more women and other people dealing with trauma in their lives.

*I am also involved in the rebuilding of a internationally well known childbirth education organization to add a birth trauma prevention and healing component to their instructor training.

*I also make it my life goal to respect the women that I work with and if trauma does occur, because sometimes it does regardless of how careful we are, that their feelings will be taken seriously and resources provided for healing.

I encourage practitioners and those working on healing trauma to also visit www.solaceformothers.org and support this organization.