Fathers Who Have Been Traumatized At A Birth

Being at a traumatic birth can be devastating to everyone. Sometimes a woman can feel ok about her birth experience but have left the father being so blown out he isn’t sure he wants another baby. Other times the woman is left with a trauma when the father doesn’t know what she’s fussing about.

None of this matters in the long run if you can do something to heal the experience.There are so many reasons for a traumatic birth and the after affects. No one would have wanted that experience for you. Being present at a traumatic birth can hinder you from feeling confident as a new parent and that’s not good.

You might believe that every birth you have will be traumatic now. That’s just not true. Every birth is different and there is no way you can predetermine that the next birth will be like. So many personal and political issues surround childbirth that’s really easy to blame yourself or others. Sometimes you just believe whatever Higher Power you turn to has pre-determined this traumatic experience.


The most effective way to produce a positive birth experience is to learn coaching skills during pregnancy. As a man, you may have gone to childbirth classes and learned lots of information that actually had nothing to do with giving birth. Learning birth skills such as Directed Breathing, The Pelvic Clock and Deep Touch Relaxation is just not common. Often people feel that learning birth skills is about having a ‘natural birth’. Well, that’s true. Everything about birth is natural or normal. But that doesn’t mean that natural means good, easy or with a successful outcome or make people happy.

There are so many factors around childbirth that we cannot control. However, the one thing we can control is our ability to respond to any situation. The more skilled we are the more able we are to respond rather than react or to feel swept along by events. Often people feel fine after very traumatic experiences if they have been able to use their own set of skills to navigate through the experience. This is the one huge benefit for you as a man. Learn how to coach at birth and these skills can be used in absolutely any birth.

All the research done on post traumatic stress has much to do with the ability to respond even if you didn’t see the event coming. Humans like being skilled … men in particular. Men often feel less manly when they move out of their skill range. Childbirth skills have not been part of most men’s upbringing. This can change.

Feeling competent and capable is one of our great desires. We so strongly want to be skilled that learning new things often affects our self esteem until the skills become second nature.

Helping a woman cope with childbirth is always a challenge. Labour can be very painful and all the medical care in the world leave a father feeling like a third arm but not if he has good coaching skills.

Coaching skills don’t come naturally. They must be learned and practiced for several weeks before the birth. From 24 weeks of pregnancy onward, a woman’s body is preparing for birth. This increases every week.

Coaching skills come in two forms. The first is learning a set of ‘techniques.’ The danger of just learning a series of techniques comes when the woman has trouble using them. What does she default to? Stressful behaviors that lead to feeling traumatized.

On the other hand if you learn a set of birth skills that come from our human behaviors then you can both share these skills and use them together. This sharing is so important during birth.

Learning coaching skills based on our human body and behaviors mean you can truly understand how we breathe, what causes our breathing to change and how to use breath to produce the greatest relaxation. Understanding how and why means that you can use the skills when they are necessary. They will never fail when they are used.

Childbirth may be full of potentially traumatic experiences but if you have and use your coaching skills … by choice, will power and through determination than you are less likely to feel traumatized. Often the difference between having a traumatic experience and being traumatized has much more to do with what skills you use than what happens.

Feeling powerless is a statement of lack of skills. This powerlessness affects both women and men. We must remember that there are many things that happen in our lives that we have absolutely no control over. When we have skills then we can manage the experience even if we don’t like it. Thankfully there are many, many families who have wonderful birth experiences even though they were difficult or with less preferred outcomes. They achieve this by working together and whether they know it or not having skills to do so.

If you have been traumatized by a previous birth, now is the time to learn birth skills, even if your partner is not pregnant. Heal the past so you can meet the future with better skills then you’ll use those skills as birth unfolds which it will.

Never expect anyone to give you or do something for you as your bottom line. No one can make us be happy or sad or angry or calm. These are things we have to do for ourselves in whatever situation. It’s the same with birth coaching skills. Birth coaching skills once learned are yours forever and are applicable for many other situations in life believe it or not. Knowing how to used relaxed breathing comes in handy many times in life.

As a dad who has experienced a previous traumatic birth please know that there is much you can do to heal your partner and yourself. You are not alone.

If you want to know more about Directed Breathing, the Pelvic Clock or Deep Touch Relaxation then visit http://www.birthingbetter.com and learn more about The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® the only childbirth preparation course that focuses entirely on birth skills for mothers and fathers for ALL births. Wintergreen, is a Trustee to Common Knowledge Trust which produces The Pink Kit. She is a childbirth communicator and communicates on the societal benefits of growing a skilled birthing population.