Women’s Stories: The Evolution of a Birth Trauma Support Group

Robyn Wall & Julie Chalmers

Women Youth & Children Community Health ProgramsSocial Work Service

wycsocialwork@act.gov.au

Reasons parents may be referred to our service

• Difficulties bonding with their baby• Coping with mental health issues • Adjustment to being a parent• Relationship issues (stress, breakdown, change)• Concerns about family relationships• Feeling isolated from family, friends and community

Reasons parents may be referred to our service

• Unresolved childhood trauma that is impacting on parenting or being triggered by parenting

• Learning to parent in the absence of any positive role models for parenting

• Coping after a difficult childbirth experience or birth trauma

The Birth Trauma Support Group

Creating the Birth Trauma Support Group

Noticed an increase of women who talked about having “difficult births” and found a significant proportion of these women were experiencing symptoms of trauma

Clients felt alone, unprepared and uninformed about what they were experiencing

Creating the Birth Trauma Support Group

Symptoms of trauma include– Avoidance of triggers or reminders of birth– Flashbacks – Nightmares– Hyper-vigilance– Preoccupation with details/specific aspects of the

birth

Creating the Birth Trauma Support Group

Clients felt alone, unprepared and uninformed about what they were experiencing

Impacts of Birth Trauma

What the research told us

1. Literature shows that up to 30% of women experience some symptoms of trauma as a result of their childbirth experience (Beck, 2010, Gamble et al, 2005).Up to 45% of women described the birth as ‘deeply distressing’

Incidence of Birth Trauma encountered by the Service

What the research told us

2. Research indicates that group work could be beneficial for women with birth trauma.

3. The Birth Trauma Support Group may well be the first of its kind.

Originally created as part of a QI project

Aims: 1. To increase women’s understanding

of birth trauma and its effects2. To reduce feelings of isolation in this

experience

Developing the Birth Trauma Support Group

Group Outline Began as a psycho-educational group with one 3

hour session exploring• Myths and facts about childbirth • Defining Birth trauma and its impacts on parents• Developing Coping strategies• Increasing awareness of community resources

and supports

Touchstones for the Group

Drawing on the following theories for practice:• Principles of Adult Education• Trauma Informed Therapy• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy• Narrative Therapy• Mindfulness• The team’s own practice wisdom

A Learning Experience

The Birth Trauma Support Group

• Ran 8 groups in total• 4-8 Women and their babies in each group• 1 x 3 hr session held in various locations• 2 Facilitators for each session

What we learned from the women in the beginning

What we learned from the Women throughout the group

What we learned as a teamInviting feedback led to:

•Enhanced level of knowledge and skills about birth trauma

•Continued development of research and evaluation methods and group work

What we learned as a team

• Development of supporting resources

• Sharing of knowledge, skills and practice wisdom

• Worked closely with and were supported by other related services in the community

Challenges Experienced by the Team

A number of challenges were experienced including

• Meeting a variety of needs within the group•Different methods used for working in the group•Deciding who would benefit from group

Challenges Experienced by the Team

• Using the group to complement individual counselling, not replacing it.

• Time constraints in the preparation and delivery of group considering limited staff resources

• Competing client demands

Where to from here?

• Turning our focus towards sustainability

• In the process of submitting findings for publication

• Hope to improve the understanding of trauma experienced following childbirth within the Health Community

In Summary

Birth trauma is a common but poorly understood experience following childbirth

Through listening and responding to feedback and ongoing research, the team has been able to develop a program that is tailored to meet our client’s needs.

“We are not alone”Group 3 Participant