Healing from the Delivery Room: Birth Trauma Recovery Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe birth trauma and what came after. Writers describe what happened in the room — an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic and a missed first meeting with the baby, haemorrhage, a severe tear nobody had warned about, fundal pressure, examinations without consent, being shouted at while pushing, a transfer from home, being left alone to labour, saying something was wrong and not being believed — and births that were medically uneventful but left them feeling unsafe and unheard. There is coming home: flashbacks, nightmares, avoiding hospitals, weeks in the NICU, a body that hurt long after, and fathers who watched a wife bleed from outside the door. Writers describe reading their own birth notes, debrief meetings, letters to the hospital, a diagnosis of PTSD, trauma-focused therapy, and what it took to go back for another baby or decide one was enough. Contributors include a midwife, a nurse, a birth educator, non-birthing parents, a grandmother who watched her daughter's birth go wrong, and a woman who stayed silent for twenty years. Later chapters cover intimacy, cost, language barriers and confinement customs.

Who it's for

For parents who came away from a birth shaken and unsure whether they are allowed to call it trauma, partners who were in the room, people planning another birth, and midwives and obstetricians.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 283 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.