Story by Alan Jacques
A LIMERICK psychotherapist and mother shares her personal experience of a traumatic birth experience and her subsequent healing journey in a new ebook available on Amazon.
‘Healing The Pain of A Traumatic Birth Experience’ is written by counsellor and mother of two girls, Nicola Hogg.
An experienced psychotherapist in private practice for the past seven years in Ballingarry, she feels that her book is particularly relevant in the context of the fact that Limerick Maternity Hospital now has one of the highest C-section and intervention rates in Ireland.
After the arrival of Nicola’s first daughter, Isobel, in 2009 it took her many months to feel like she had worked through her feelings of “loss and trauma” after her difficult birth.
“This led me to become interested in other women’s experiences of birth and I discovered that many felt traumatised by their birth experiences but do not speak about it. I believe many women are diagnosed with postnatal depression when in fact the birth experience itself can be the root cause of their intense feelings postnatally”, she said.
Over the past number of years, Nicola has found increasing numbers of women coming to her practice with symptoms of post traumatic stress following difficult birth experiences. She said these women’s births would be considered quite ‘routine’ in medical terms but interventions such as episiotomies, induced and prolonged labours and C-sections deeply affect many women.
“Counselling can help women to process and then release intense feelings about their birth experiences so that fear of labour/ birth does not become an obstacle in their lives. Talking to an objective and non judgmental counsellor can be a deeply healing experience,” she explained.
Nicola felt that there was a need for an accessible book for mothers after difficult births and this led her to write about her own experience as a way of helping other mothers.
‘Healing The Pain of A Traumatic Birth Experience’ is available now as an ebook from Amazon.
