Ways to support a mom after a difficult birth

Working with real people brings with it real stories. I feel honored that parents share their triumphs and struggles with me, because in today's culture it is common to "curate" what others know about our lives.

Because of the habit of keeping the hard stuff to ourselves, we also have trouble truly being present for the people who do have the courage to speak up about how they are feeling. Maybe we don't know how to deal with the negative. Or rather – our way of dealing with the negative is to try and quickly brush it off with a positive thought, when sometimes just being present will help someone deal with the emotions.

Feelings are normal, even the negative ones.

Mia had planned for an at-home birth, but had to be moved to the hospital for a c-section after seven hours of pushing. When I headed over for a newborn session for her new baby a couple weeks later, we talked about her feeling sad and disappointed about her birth experience. She was grateful to have a healthy happy baby, but that did not make her feel better about having to shift the way she brought her into the world. She was finding it hard to talk to others about her feelings, because the advice and positive comments often left her feeling invalidated.

I don't know if my two cents were helpful to her, but I remember thinking that I wish there were something I could do.

So – I asked Mia if she'd like to share her story and talk about how she would have loved to be supported, so that others out there may be able to ask for what they need:

Mia's Story:

Everyone said to me, “All that matters is you are healthy and baby is healthy. Just be happy about that”.

Yes, I was incredibly grateful that myself and my daughter Juniper were healthy – that was the most important outcome.

However, I also had intense feelings of grief and disappointment. I was disappointed in my body for not doing what it is supposed to do, what it is “made for”. I was grieving over not experiencing the home birth I had planned for physically and mentally for the last nine months. I was grieving over not being able to hold my baby until over an hour after she was born - no immediate skin to skin like I had imagined in my head.

I kept hearing over and over how lucky I should feel that I have my little girl and that I am doing fine. I wasn’t doing fine – I was experiencing intense feelings of sadness, as well as guilt – I felt guilty that I wasn’t happier, and that I wasn’t experiencing that amazing first-time mom high I had read and heard about.

Fast forward three months – I now love being Junie’s mom, but that feeling took time to build. I still feel grief over how her birth happened, as if I didn’t actually give birth to her. I am working through these feelings with a therapist, and it has been healing.

How you can support mom:

Validation from others would be most helpful in this type of situation – acknowledgement that it’s okay to feel happiness and sadness at the same time. No forced/faked feelings, just real and raw emotions. Postpartum mamas experience a huge drop of hormones (coupled with exhaustion and often physical pain), which can lead to intense feelings of sadness and sometimes depression. So much of the attention is now on baby, so make sure to ask mom how she is doing as well.

Listen to her birth story and honor whatever she is feeling. There is no need to gloss over anything.

I will leave you with a quote someone shared in my new mom’s group:

"The most difficult part of birth is the first year afterwards. It is the year of travail - when the soul of a woman must birth the mother inside her. The emotional labour pains of becoming a mother are far greater than the physical pangs of birth; these are the growing surges of your heart as it pushes out selfishness and fear and makes room for sacrifice and love. It is a private and silent birth of the soul, but it is no less holy than the event of childbirth, perhaps it is even more sacred." - Joy Kusek