Birth Trauma Therapy
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A difficult or frightening birth experience can have lasting emotional effects. Even when a pregnancy or delivery looks “successful” on paper, many people are left feeling shaken, disconnected, or unable to make sense of what happened. Birth trauma therapy offers a space to process these experiences and their impact without pressure to minimize or reframe them prematurely.
Birth trauma is defined by how an experience is perceived and processed by the nervous system, not by the presence or absence of medical complications. What matters is whether the experience continues to feel unresolved or distressing.
What Is Birth Trauma?
Birth trauma refers to emotional or psychological distress resulting from a difficult, frightening, or overwhelming pregnancy, labor, delivery, or postpartum experience. Trauma is defined less by what happened medically and more by how the experience was perceived and processed by your nervous system.
Common contributors to birth trauma include:
Even births that appear “successful” or medically routine can be experienced as traumatic.
Common contributors to birth trauma include:
- Emergency or unplanned C-sections
- Complicated or prolonged labor
- Medical interventions that felt frightening or poorly explained
- Feeling ignored, pressured, or disempowered by medical providers
- Severe pain or panic during labor
- Birth injuries or NICU stays
- Pregnancy or birth complications affecting parent or baby
- Prior trauma reactivated by pregnancy or childbirth
Even births that appear “successful” or medically routine can be experienced as traumatic.
How Birth Trauma Therapy Helps
Our Approach
Birth trauma therapy focuses on helping your nervous system process what happened in a way that feels contained and manageable. Rather than pushing for quick insight or positivity, therapy moves at a pace that prioritizes safety and stabilization.
This work can help reduce anxiety and trauma responses, support emotional regulation, and allow you to integrate the birth experience without it continuing to dominate your thoughts or reactions. Therapy may also address how birth trauma impacts relationships, identity, and decisions about future pregnancies.
This work can help reduce anxiety and trauma responses, support emotional regulation, and allow you to integrate the birth experience without it continuing to dominate your thoughts or reactions. Therapy may also address how birth trauma impacts relationships, identity, and decisions about future pregnancies.
We use trauma-informed, evidence-based approaches tailored to each client. This may include EMDR, psychodynamic therapy, and nervous system–focused interventions. Treatment is collaborative and paced carefully, especially when memories feel overwhelming or unclear.
If your birth experience continues to feel unresolved—whether that shows up as anxiety, emotional distance, intrusive memories, or a lingering sense that something isn’t settled—therapy can offer meaningful support. Many people wait to seek help because they feel unsure whether their experience “counts” as trauma or worry they should be over it by now. There is no timeline for healing, and you do not need to justify your distress in order to receive care.
Birth trauma therapy provides a structured, compassionate space to process what happened and understand how it may still be affecting you. Over time, this work can help reduce trauma responses, increase emotional steadiness, and restore a sense of trust in yourself and your body. For some, therapy also supports decisions around future pregnancies or medical care by helping the past feel less activating in the present.
If you’re considering birth trauma therapy, we invite you to reach out to schedule a consultation. This initial conversation is an opportunity to ask questions, learn more about our approach, and determine whether this work feels like a good fit for your needs.
Birth trauma therapy provides a structured, compassionate space to process what happened and understand how it may still be affecting you. Over time, this work can help reduce trauma responses, increase emotional steadiness, and restore a sense of trust in yourself and your body. For some, therapy also supports decisions around future pregnancies or medical care by helping the past feel less activating in the present.
If you’re considering birth trauma therapy, we invite you to reach out to schedule a consultation. This initial conversation is an opportunity to ask questions, learn more about our approach, and determine whether this work feels like a good fit for your needs.
