PTSTD or Postnatal Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder could in many situations be avoided if the mother had been heard. Instead we have too many women being diagnosed with PTSTD, stemming from a less than ideal birthing experience.
PTSTD is a type of anxiety disorder, also known as birth trauma, with symptoms including vivid flashbacks - feeling that the trauma is happening right now, not being able to show affection to your baby, feeling isolated and blaming yourself for what happened, and terror around the thought of going through labour again.
Not so long ago, birthing our children looked very different to how it does today - in a hospital, in some cases with a midwife - you’re only just meeting for the first time, and a team of other professionals - strangers - coming and going, often taking the baby away from the mother soon after delivery. Never addressing the often hellish events that have just occurred.
Shhhhh new mum. Now go home and look great, have an abundant flow of milk, and do not complain about pain or sleeplessness, about potentially not bonding with your newborn, and make sure you’re feeling and looking pretty goddamn sexy very soon as otherwise your partner may take a new lover. Oh my goodness, the pressure! The fear.
Sequoila Glastonbury is co-mother of the Not For Profit Hygieia Health - a charity she co-founded with 3 like-minded women focusing on preventing and healing birth trauma, by supporting gentle births. Their highest vision is to create a private birthing sanctuary open to the birth choices of all mothers, creating a system that supports not just mothers and their babies, but also their families and care providers. Sequoia holds the vision of the Healed Sisterhood.
Over the past 14 years she has been a teacher at the School of Shamanic Womancraft, having apprenticed and co-taught with Jane Hardwicke Collings. Sequoia teaches the school’s 4 Seasons Journey in Byron Bay and is the hearth keeper (or operations queen!) at the school.
Sequoia Can be reached at School of Shamanic Womancraft.
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