When Birth Trauma Goes Unacknowledged

On the Resilient Birth podcast, Justine and Sarah explore the impact of trauma in the perinatal period. Through an inspirational quote that drives the weekly content, Justine and Sarah explore various trauma areas with vulnerability and compassion that support birthing people and birth professionals. Each week, listeners leave with takeaways to utilize in their lives and/or clients. Justine and Sarah hold the stories they share with honor and respect with the hope to impart knowledge, increase understanding, and bear witness to this challenging topic.

Sarah is a licensed mental health counselor, educator, and mom of three. She walks with a story of trauma from before and as a result of her perinatal experience.

Justine supports survivors of trauma through perinatal coaching and childbirth education. As well as being a mother of three, she holds a Ph.D. on representations of consent and sexual violence.

In this episode we talk about what happens when birth trauma is or is not acknowledged by others. Both Sarah and Justine share personally about the impact of birth trauma upon themselves and how providers' actions and words activated previous trauma they experienced.

If you would like to read the article this week's quote came from, here is the citation: Theresa Morris, Joan H Robinson, Keridwyn Spiller, & Amanda Gomez, (2023) “Screaming, ‘No! No!’ It was Literally Like Being Raped”: Connecting Sexual Assault Trauma and Coerced Obstetric Procedures, Social Problems, 70:1, 55–70. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spab024