My mixed feelings about trauma

When I think about trauma, which I do often, all the paradoxical feelings come up.

On the one hand I think we are lucky to be living in an enlightened age where evidence about how trauma has far reached effects on our health is gradually becoming common knowledge. 

But when I consider perinatal trauma, so much responsibility lies at the door of our traumatising healthcare system, and this thought makes my heart very heavy indeed.

Because this is not commonly acknowledged.

Yes, if our healthcare was properly funded then it would help.

Yes, if we valued midwives more, then that would help.

But so much trauma is endured by parents in the name of ‘medical science knows best’ and ‘we will do what is best for the baby, you are an inconsequential female, a mere vessel’ and ‘you’re female, your body can’t be trusted, so we will manage this’ and ‘your use value is complete after the birth of this child so it doesn’t matter if your pelvic floor or vagina is destroyed in the process’.

Sadly, I don’t see any signs of this kind of systematic, medical, misogynistic abuse ending.

Because it does feel like abuse to those traumatised by the system.

Those traumatised parents are released back home to care for their young infants.

Infants who require safe attachments to responsive parents to develop an autonomic nervous system that can self regulate as they grow.

And this is the problem, when we feel abused, discarded, and rung out by birth it’s much harder to form those attachments, to bond, to love, to feed and to physically recover.

We will never be able to prevent trauma completely but understanding how it can be particularly damaging at vulnerable times of life can surely be our motivator to improve our systems in healthcare, education, and law to make them ‘trauma proof’ for the people using those systems.

Until then it is even more important that parents can access support outside of the system.

There has never been more of a need for perinatal professionals, midwives, doulas, breastfeeding counsellors, antenatal teachers, and TBR 3 Step Rewind Practitioners.

This week TBR College has created 10 new live training events that will happen over Zoom.

When students enrol on to any Live Zoom training for TBR 3 Step Rewind, Understanding & Supporting Anxiety or Supporting Baby Loss & Miscarriage they will automatically receive lifetime access to the online course too which includes all of the resources to practice (scripts and audio), pre recorded webinars, and video demonstrations of each of the steps.

The live training via Zoom gives students the valuable opportunity to practice the steps in pairs in breakout rooms.

All TBR students benefit from the supportive closed Facebook community and access to monthly supervision too.

This is the most compelling and comprehensive training that we have ever offered and so I am really excited to finally be able go live with it!

You can check out the available dates, payment plans and what is included here.