Tagged With "Childbirth"

By Arlene Harris, The Irish Times, February 7, 2020 While it may be an innate and mainly joyful event, many pregnant women feel anxious at the thought of going through labour and can suffer emotional and physical distress during the delivery itself. And there is one group of women for whom there is an extra level of trauma associated with the arrival of their unborn child – those who have been victims of sexual assault. Hazel Larkin is a sexual abuse survivor and over the coming months will...

For mothers who experienced traumatic births, these birthdays are the cruelest of celebrations. We are supposed to smile and shower love on our children, and never admit that on these days we would really love to curl up in a ball and sob. We are not supposed to say that having our children took too high a toll on our physical and mental health. We are not supposed to mention just how badly our medical and social systems failed to support us when we needed it the most.

High blood pressure. In your third trimester of pregnancy, you do not want to hear these three words, especially if you are planning to have a home birth. My blood pressure nearly caused me to have an induction for my first birth and transfer to a hospital birth for my second birth. I wish I had known of the ACEs test so I wouldn't have felt so lost and guilty. For my first birth I was clueless. I did not understand why this was happening to me because I ate a healthy diet, went to boxing...