Women

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Womens Stories The Evolution of a Birth
Trauma Support Group
Robyn Wall Julie Chalmers Women Youth
Children Community Health Programs Social Work
Service wycsocialwork_at_act.gov.au
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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

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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

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The Birth Trauma Support Group
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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

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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

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Creating the Birth Trauma Support Group

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

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Impacts of Birth Trauma
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What the research told us

• 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

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Incidence of Birth Trauma encountered by the
Service
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What the research told us

• Research indicates that group work could be
  beneficial for women with birth trauma.
• The Birth Trauma Support Group may well be the
  first of its kind.

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Developing the Birth Trauma Support Group

• Originally created as part of a QI project
• Aims
• To increase womens understanding of birth trauma
  and its effects
• To reduce feelings of isolation in this experience

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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

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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 teams own practice wisdom

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A Learning Experience
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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

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What we learned from the women in the beginning
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What we learned from the Women throughout the
group
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What we learned as a team

• Inviting feedback led to
• Enhanced level of knowledge and skills about
  birth trauma
• Continued development of research and evaluation
  methods and group work

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 clients
needs.
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We are not alone Group 3 Participant