Hello and a favor to ask you warrior Mamas :)

californiafrog7905 · January 2012

Hoping this board is a good place to put this post; I believe pretty strongly that there's a huge link between a traumatic birthing experience and PPD/PPA symptoms, myself...

I'm a psychologist and May 2012 mom (also June 2008 mom to DD#1) looking to gather some information on birth trauma from the mom's perspective. And by trauma I mean when you have a birthing experience that goes wildly unlike your worst expectations, or if you end up with a C-section when you were planning to go all-natural, or anything in between these two examples. I'm hoping to attract clients/moms who have had a traumatic birthing experience in the hopes that therapy will help them work through and process their experiences/thoughts/emotions/impact on their relationship with the baby, things like that. (Hope this all makes sense so far!)

If anyone reading this feels like this might apply to you, I had a few questions that I'd love to get some details for that would help me advertise appropriately and communicate my openness as a therapist to addressing and working with moms on birth trauma experiences. What I'm asking you all is for input that I can turn into brochures, so to speak. So if this is you, and you're interested, could you email me some responses to these questions/topics:

What do you remember thinking and feeling when you realized your birthing experience was going horribly awry compared to what you'd anticipated?

What do you feel would have helped you cope with your experience in a more effective way, if you could go back and change anything?

How do you feel your birthing experience may have impacted the bond you share with your newborn, positively or negatively?

(And if you can think of anything else you experienced or recall that I haven't, please tell me; I'm wide open to additional info or suggestions of how to pitch/approach this.)

That's about all I can think of at the moment; if anyone is willing to help me out (and in the process, hopefully help the moms in my area who may be dealing with these issues!), I'd LOVE to hear from you: atlantaduck @ yahoo.com You don't have to give me your name or any other contact info besides the email, but I'm also glad to talk to anyone who might want to have a phone conversation, too, about this topic or PPD or anything related.