Dads Traumatised By Birth

We are going to stick to this theme for a while because we, The Women, owe it to Men the dignity and acceptance that they are hugely impacted by how we birth our (their) baby! Dads are traumatized by birth more than you know. This article states that 15% of women in the US experience TABS or trauma after birth syndrome. Does that mean 15% of men are traumatized by birth? Probably not … probably more! 

Why would we make this assertion? It’s simple, this article about dads and birth trauma gives us some of the reasons men continued to be excluded yet required … and nowhere in this article is the word SKILL mentioned. 

This article brings up so many of the confusions, myths, conundrums, misinformation of the present childbirth conversation that we want to climb to the highest mountain and yell … ‘It doesn’t have to be this way’.

Pointing out confusion 

This article says point things that flash red lights at us here at Common Knowledge Trust and Birthing Better families.

• Red light one: This author, like many, claims that women need to feel safe to birth. Pause for a moment. Do women in Syria today in that horrific war still give birth? You’ve answered the absurdity of this belief that women have to feel safe to birth. We don’t. We just have to birth. Do you think the Boko Harum girls who were captured would feel better about their births after being raped if they had a personal set of skills they could use to birth their babies? Of course, they would. We cannot create safety for all birthing women but we can grow skilled birthing women who retreat into their own internalized safety when they feel unsafe! 
• Red light two: This author also says that ‘it is risky to bring primitive instincts into the delivery room’. First of all if you’ve read anything about birth by famous authors they are telling you to be in ‘your primal brain’ and that ‘women instinctively know how to birth’. Second, giving birth is always a biological mandate when it’s happening no matter where, with whom or whether it’s induced, spontaneous or by surgery. We get out of pregnancy one way only … giving birth. Third, without skills, we will always ‘react’ rather than ‘respond’. With skills, we respond within ourselves no matter how challenging the situation! We must be our own ‘first responders’ while giving birth and that is why we need to be highly skilled for this one-off and very intense Life transforming event. 

We will keep talking to you, hope you’ll spread the word, begin to see the common sense of becoming skilled as a pregnant woman and expectant dad. Then together you can meet and surround the challenges of becoming than being parents.

Let us lead you to the 10 skills men need to grow from conception to birth.  You should grow them as well. Growing these skills while pregnant can go a long way to preventing birth trauma.

Then you absolutely need to prepare your body to give birth because doing so will give you confidence. As you are doing that you need to learn great birth and birth-coaching skills so you can work together no matter how fraught your relationship is with conflict. Look at all the skills you’ll learn!