How to Heal a Bad Birth: Making sense, making peace and moving on

Best resource I have found. Well researched and references and really speaks to the issue of how a person recovers from the unexpected, traumatic or difficult experiences during childbirth and the fallout that happens to our physiology and psychology and how it affects families, mothers and babies. Great resources, useful tools for processing and healing, overall a must read for any women who feels they have things from the birth then need to make sense of, heal from or understand. There is a great chapter for partners to help understand what they themselves went through and how they can help support their wife to heal. Highly recommend for birth workers, husbands, families and friends of those who have suffered the unexpected, traumatic, painful or loss during the process of birth, breastfeeding and becoming a mother.

I bought this book after stumbling onto the author's blog, Birth Trauma Truths which contains some excerpts. The main principle of the book is that whether we experience birth as good or bad is strongly affected by our subjective experience (i.e. feeling safe, heard, in control, or scared, alone, dismissed etc). This is in addition to and perhaps more than objectively "what happened."This book has been a key part of my healing from a traumatic birth and helped me prepare for a better experience with my second. It helped me understand what happened and why I felt so terrible even several years later. So many times reading I thought "yes exactly!" as it put words to what I was feeling. This helped so much as I felt validated and that I wasn't alone. It also gives practical exercises to help work through and resolve issues.Highly recommended for anyone left feeling confused, disappointed, numb or overwhelmed by their birth.

Just got my copy and read 'foundations of your healing journey' and cried about five times!I'm so grateful for this book and wanted to show my gratitude.I had a horrific experience when my daughter was born which led to a lot of pain, suffering and confusion. I find I even still have a very difficult time especially around her birthday.I'm a single mother back in school for social work and want to specialize in the different aspects of birth trauma. I need this book to both heal me and help heal others. I feel birth trauma needs more recognition and people often suffer in silence.You have done a great thing helping others and thank you so very much. I can't tell you how often I felt alone and confused about what happened to both myself and my daughter. This really helps my healing journey and I'm so grateful to have something to relate too.Thank you again ❤️

I am shocked that there are not more reviews for this book. It changed my life. If you had a traumatic birth, this book is for you. It explained my feelings - my anger, guilt, fear, sadness. It explained the whys - why did my body fail me, why was postpartum so hard. I cried through these pages. I felt validated by their words. I learned how to do it better next time around. I found peace. I wish I would have read this sooner and not let my bad birth break me for so long. God bless the women that wrote this book and contributed to it. I love you for it.

I read the library's copy and found it useful enough to purchase a copy to keep on hand. Many of the legal and organizational resources are geared for readers in Australia, but the majority of the book is applicable wherever you are, geographically. I especially found the bonding exercises and (surprisingly) the art therapy parts useful and rewarding. Definitely recommend.