Frequently asked questions

Your BTR practitioner is trained to:

• Listen to your unique birth experience in a sympathetic and non-judgmental way.
• Validate your perception of your birth experience.
• Create a treatment plan that is appropriate to your individual experience.
• Teach you breathing techniques to help you relax and reduce symptoms of anxiety and panic.
• Create you a personalised guided imagery/ visualisation, relaxation download to listen to after your session.
• Dissolve the strong negative emotions attached to the memory of your birth so that you can remember your birth without experiencing feelings of anxiety and panic.
• Help rebuild your confidence after the trauma.
• Help you rebuild relationships and help you get your life back on track.
• Refer you on to appropriate and relevant professionals when necessary i.e. bereavement counsellor, relate counsellor etc.
• Help you access a listening or debriefing service so that you can further your understanding of what happened during your birth and help you make sense of it.

Your practitioner is trained in solution-focussed therapy that can offer you great results, often in a little as 2 or 3 treatments.

BTR therapy can help with the trauma element of loss enabling you to pass through the stages of grief more easily. Following BTR treatment a practitioner would always refer you on to a bereavement counsellor for support.

BTR practitioners are trained to work with mothers, fathers and birth companions. They also offer treatment for staff including midwives, obstetricians, health visitors and any other staff suffering from vicarious trauma after witnessing and listening to the details of a traumatic birth. BTR therapy can also help with the symptoms of workplace trauma including bullying, stress from under-staffing etc.

Re-living aspects of the trauma

• Flashbacks (feeling like the trauma is still happening in the here and now)
• Intrusive thoughts or images.
• Feeling anxious or panicky when you think about your you birth.
• Increase in physical symptoms like asthma, IBS and migraines.

Avoiding feelings or memories 

• You avoid thinking about your traumatic birth because it is too distressing.
• You avoid activities, places or people that remind you of your birth.
• You find it hard to remember important aspects of your birth.
• Lost interest in activities that you used to enjoy.
• Disconnection from family and friends.
• Unable to express loving feelings towards your child, family or friends.
• No Hopes or positive thoughts about the future.

Alertness or feeling on edge

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
• Feeling irritable and experiencing anger outbursts.
• Find it difficult to concentrate.
• Constantly watching for danger.
• Constantly feeling jumpy.
• Self-destructive behaviour or recklessness.

There is a large cross over of symptoms for birth trauma and postnatal depression. This means that our current screening system which focusses on PND and not birth trauma symptoms is likely to identify women as suffering from post-natal depression. A few more key questions would lead to a very different diagnosis.