This article first appeared in Juno Magazine Spring 2006/ Issue 8

Healing Birth Wounds - Crossing The River To No Blame

Labour and birth, as in the rest of life, rarely, if ever, go as exactly as expected. You can read all the right books, eat all the right foods, do all the right exercises… only to find, for reasons that can never be fully understood, things don’t turn out as you had envisioned.  I work with parents to remain mindful during their labour, and to do ‘the next best thing’ in the face of unwished for events or circumstances.  We explore through creative processes how to cope with the very fears they may be holding onto about birth.  Yet even if you coped reasonably well with a difficult situation, you can assume a negative belief about yourself.

Searching for someone or something to blame for what happened can leave a mother open to being wounded all over again by guilt and anger. Birth wounds come in all shapes and sizes.  It may be the loss of a ‘natural’ drug-free birth, disappointment with your partner’s role in the labor, or birth by cesarean.  It can be something that seems small and insignificant to an outside observer, but nonetheless devastating to the mother.

Carrying negative beliefs, feelings of sadness, guilt, or ambivalence towards your birth can undermine your confidence as a parent, your relationship with your partner, and even how you function in work and other aspects of your life. It can carry over to future pregnancy and birth, allowing for further, deeper wounding. Midwife Pam England, Author of Birthing From Within, relates the tale of two monks walking in silence who come upon a maiden struggling to cross a river.  The older monk, remaining silent, picks up the maiden and helps her across.  The younger monk breaks his inner silence, remunerating how his companion broke his vows by touching a maiden, until finally he speaks aloud, challenging the elder’s actions.  The elder responds, “I only carried her across the river, you are still carrying her.”  As long as we continue to carry birth wounds with us, in a sense, they continue to happen now.

The importance of healing your birth wounds is often overlooked and gets lost in the course of life with a new baby. As a part of my work as a Birthing From Within childbirth mentor, I hold a Birth Story Workshops for parents who are carrying negative beliefs from their birth. Through drawing and journaling, and without defending, complaining or blaming, parents learn how to see their births in a new light and create new empowering beliefs. By looking at their births with a ‘beginner’s mind’ rather than the mind of someone who planned the ‘perfect’ birth that didn’t materialize, parents can see the brilliance and strength in what was once seen as failure.

In learning new truths about yourself and your birth, you can ‘lay your old truth on the river bank’ and continue forward in peace and strength on your journey of parenthood.

Katie Hart