Nearly 1 in 3 women experience birth trauma. It is caused either by difficult or unexpected childbirth experiences, loss, or complications during delivery. For some, it’s caused by feelings of helplessness and when your body’s fight or flight response gets overstimulated.
Your body needs to heal physically, emotionally, and psychologically. If trauma goes unresolved for a few weeks, it can make it difficult to bond with your body. Somatic Therapy is one of the few therapies that help with birth trauma. Here’s more on that.
How Does Somatic Therapy Work?
Somatic therapy works on the premise that our bodies store trauma. It focuses on the mind-body connection and encourages people to heal emotional wounds by understanding their physical senses. It’s quite different from traditional talk therapy and includes techniques like breathwork, movement, and body awareness to release stored trauma.
For example, you had an emergency C-section that made you feel out of control of your body. You feel anxious and disconnected from the baby. Your somatic therapist will ask you to focus on your breathing and to tell them if you feel tightness or unease in any part of your body. They’ll introduce gentle movements to release those unwanted physical feelings. As you start to release some of the anxiety held in her body, you’ll start processing trauma.
Why Does Somatic Therapy Work for Birth Trauma?
1. Deeper Emotional Healing
Somatic therapy addresses trauma on a physical level to target your body’s responses and helps you work through trauma stored in the nervous system.
2. Reduces Anxiety and Fear
Many women experience postpartum anxiety or feel overwhelmed by memories of childbirth. With Somatic Therapy, you can process trauma in a controlled way and at your pace.
3. Healing the Parent-Child Bond
Unresolved trauma affects parent-child bonding. You may feel like you aren’t able to engage emotionally with your baby. And that there’s some fault in you. That’s simply not true and Somatic Therapy helps you understand that.
What Are The Techniques Used in Somatic Therapy?
Your therapist will use a mix of techniques. Some of them include:
1. Body Awareness
You focus on sensations in their body, like tightness, warmth, or tension and perform gentle movements to release them.
2. Breathwork
Mindful breathing regulates the nervous system and balances out your adrenal hormones responsible for your body’s fight-or-flight response.
3. Movement and Posture
Yoga, stretching, or walking release stored trauma that may be trapped in muscles or joints.
4. Touch
Gentle pressure or tapping helps you connect with your body. Touch is grounding and particularly helpful for those feeling dissociated from their body after trauma.
5. Visualization
Your therapist will ask you to picture a safe space and that your body’s trying to release tension in that space.
6. Pendulation
Pendulation involves moving between feelings of safety and comfort to feelings of distress or trauma, then back again. It makes your body and mind more comfortable with processing difficult emotions in small, manageable doses.
7. Titration
Instead of a deep dive into childbirth trauma, your therapist will ask you to experience only a small piece of the emotion or memory at a time. It protects the nervous system from re-traumatization.
Somatic therapy isn’t just a one-time solution. Many of my clients who experienced childbirth trauma continue somatic techniques to ground themselves when stressed.
If you’re dealing with feelings of disconnection, anxiety, or unresolved grief after childbirth, I am here for you. I am a trauma and grief therapist based in Toronto, whole has worked with many postpartum mothers to heal trauma and find a new normal. Let’s talk more.
Is Birth Trauma the Same as Postpartum Depression or Anxiety?
Birth trauma is not the same as postpartum depression (PPD) or anxiety, though the experiences can overlap and influence each other. Birth trauma refers to the emotional and psychological impact of a distressing childbirth experience, which include but aren’t limited to emergency cesareans, perceived loss of control, or fear for the baby’s life.
It can lead to PTSD-like symptoms.
In contrast, postpartum depression is a depressive disorder that can begin any time during pregnancy up to one year after birth. Anxiety can present on its own or be a part of PPD.
How many therapy sessions would I need to feel better?
Most clients begin with weekly sessions for the first 4 to 8 weeks. As your therapist, my goal is to help you reduce the intensity of your symptoms and regular check-ins work best in that case.
Once you feel more stable, we move to biweekly sessions for 2 to 3 months, followed by monthly sessions. Short-term birth trauma support may take 8 to 12 sessions total, while more complex trauma histories can require 3 to 6 months or longer.
Can Somatic Therapy Help If My Birth Trauma Happened Years Ago?
Yes. Somatic therapy can be effective even many years after the event because trauma can remain stored in the nervous system. If you don’t qualify for trauma-specific therapy, you can work with a trauma-informed clinician or begin with general somatic or relational therapies and then move into trauma-specific care when ready.
Birth Trauma Therapist in Toronto
Birth trauma can leave you feeling disconnected, anxious, or unsure of yourself in a season that was meant to feel different. Using somatic therapy, we can gently restore a sense of safety in your body, process what happened at a pace that feels steady, which will help you reconnect with yourself and your child.
Book a consultation.