What is a Traumatic Birth? A traumatic birth is an experience a birthing person has that is percieved in a traumatic manner..whether they were not listened to, not respected, not given options, full information or consent, things did not go to plan..there was no plan.. Maybe standard medical care left you feeling vulnerable and in an emergency situation even though you were a healthy mother with a healthy pregnancy and baby. Maybe the natural birth community fell short of providing you the support. validation and empowerment they promised when it came down to inconvenient facts of the matter. Trauma can be experienced on a large spectrum- meaning what is traumatic for one person may not be for another, but this is one area the gap needs to be filled, by not discrediting others trauma regardless of where it lands on the spectrum because ALL BIRTH MATTERS and all trauma is valid. The Positive Pregnancy Journey Organization is conducting this 2020/2021 global poll to help evidence based research gauge how rapidly traumatic birth is spreading throughout the US and across the globe, spread awareness and change the directory of the medical world. If you vote yes or no, Please comment your Country Location and Share your experience if you desire. These statistic results will show in the WMACP endorsed by TPPJO.
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After infertility I carried my baby 37 weeks and was induced to give birth. I labored first 44 hours 30 of those on pitocin which was consistently cranked higher. I dilated to 10cm and I pushed but she was stuck. I was sick with an infection from my waters being broken too long. I did this with no pain meds due to allergies. The epidurals didn’t work. In the OR the spinals could not be placed due to my back anatomy. When they tried for half an hour I was sitting still contracting for 60 seconds every 90 seconds. I sobbed and screamed as the needle meant to bring relief bounced off bone in my spinal column over and over sending lightning waves of pain throughout every nerve in my body. When my OB asked me to try to push her out on the OR table
To avoid general anesthesia I hugged my knees to my chest feverish, in unspeakable agony and I pushed until I started bleeding. She wouldn’t come. I laid on the OR table screaming at them to save her They tied me down arms and legs as contractions racked my body over and over with no breathing time. I breathed through my snotty nose stuffed with an oxygen cannula, squeezed my eyes shut to try to avoid the bright lights and prayed to God to save my baby’s life and to end my torture. The OB scrubbed as fast as she could. When I woke up I rasped out,”is she alive?” with tears streaming down my face. The nurses assured me she was absolutely beautiful and and just needed some help. I was wheeled up to my room and told by a nurse I needed to stand up so she could take off a bandage. I managed to pull myself up out of the bed and stand when she told me that if I did I could go see my baby in the nicu for skin to skin etc. I stood up and literally ripped the tape off the incision pulling a steri strip with it. I screamed and when she was done pressing the steri strip back on I reached for the wheel chair arm but she stepped in front of me and told me to get back in bed and that I couldn’t go see my baby. She had another nurse remove the wheelchair. I asked why but she gave no answer and I cried the next 26 hours as I asked other nurses why that nurse hadn’t allowed me to go see my baby and why she had told them not to let me. Finally 26 hours later a new nurse saw me sobbing in my room and asked what the problem was-she immediately called for a wheelchair helped me into it after changing my soaked pad herself and wheeled me up to nicu to have skin to skin and rang for the lactation consultant per my birth request. I held my baby in the Nicu dept and cried again. No pain meds and recovering from a major surgery I had my prize in my arms.
1 week later I returned to the hospital feverish and on deaths door. An interior abscess and blood infection. They had to put a drain in. I was told I would be put under sedation and would need to pump and dump. I asked if I could do it without the meds and sedation and was hesitatingly told yes but it would be awful and everybody gets sedated...with strange nurses and a doctor I watched the lidocaine (which didn’t work) needle go in my stomach and then the scalpel followed by the suction device and drain. I screamed again over and over and the nurse begged me to take the sedation but I refused...the day before thanksgiving I went home on triple antibiotics and several scars.