In February this year, Hudgells submitted evidence and shared our clients’ experiences of birth trauma as a first-ever parliamentary inquiry on birth trauma was launched. The inquiry report is expected in May.
As part of our continued commitment to supporting families who’ve experienced birth trauma and to enable us to be trauma-informed and better understand the devastating impact it can have on the lives of our clients and their families, we invited Rachael McGrath, Chair of Birth Trauma Association to talk to us.
Birth Trauma Association is a national charity which was founded 20 years ago. The charity carries out research, and campaigns (most notably on the current All Party Parliamentary Group on Birth Trauma), provides training on birth trauma and most importantly supports its service users who have birth trauma. They aim to improve families’ experience of giving birth.
Rachael talked of the staggering statistics around birth trauma including their research which shows Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects one quarter of women following childbirth. A Birth Trauma Association survey in 2020 revealed that trauma was reported most by women who had an emergency caesarean section with an epidural. The survey also showed the highest number of women experiencing a traumatic birth reported that fear of losing their baby and poor communication from staff was the cause of their trauma.
Rachael explained that everyone’s trauma is valid and reasonable and that the term “trauma” cannot be defined.
She provided our team with strategies they can use to improve the service provided to our clients who have experienced birth trauma.
Our team left the training reflecting on their own practices when working with women and their families who have suffered birth trauma.
We were all inspired by the work carried out by Rachael and Birth Trauma Association in supporting its service users and understand why the comment, “Birth Trauma Association saved my life’’ has been said so many times by their service users.
