Rebounding from Childbirth: Toward Emotional Recovery

By Lynn Madsen

Book Overview

Never mind what you've been through. The baby's here, he's healthy. That's the most important thing, isn't it? Few women planning a pregnancy or anticipating childbirth would dispute that the safe birth of a healthy child is their primary concern. Even when this happy outcome is achieved, however, the process of childbirth itself can wreak havoc on a woman's emotional and physiological well-being--especially when unforeseen medical complications change the expected course of labor and delivery. Rebounding From Childbirth--the first book to focus exclusively on the mother's feelings about a difficult birth--shows how traumatic childbirth forces a woman to suddenly relinquish cherished hopes for her experience of actually becoming a mother. Amid the joys of a healthy baby, the mother's feelings of anger, grief, failure and disappointment often get scant attention from family, friends and medical personnel. Drawing from her own life as a professional counselor and mother of three, Lynn Madsen argues that a woman should not underestimate her own need to recover emotionally and physiologically from a violent birth experience. Without true healing, Madsen's analysis reveals, a new mother's suppressed sense of loss and pain can affect her relationships with her baby and husband, her body image, her feelings about going back to work, even her hopes for future pregnancies and births. Through her own story and those of other women, Madsen offers comfort, hope, and an intensely personal perspective to new mothers who feel alone with a range of negative feelings about childbirth. Taking a dual stance as counselor and mother, she structures self-analytical questions and outlines techniques such as journal and letter writing to help the reader begin the healing journey. For obstetricians, nurses, midwives, new mothers and mothers-to-be, Rebounding From Childbirth provides moving insight and counsel on a difficult subject.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0897893484
• ISBN13: 9780897893480
• Release Date: July 1994
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent!

I thought this was a great book for those of us with negative feelings of our birth experiences. Some real truths are dealt with here and I felt better reading about situations and emotions like my own. The book helped me realize that what I was feeling and people's reactions to my feelings were not at all uncommon. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying to recover from a negative experience and feels that no one understands. I am so glad I found it!

The Only Book of its Kind

I had a very difficult childbirth (back labor, young inexperienced doctor AND nurse, long, LONG labor, botched epidural led to general anesthesia for my emergency c-section, etc.).For months I looked and looked to find something that would address my lingering feelings of loss and trauma. This book is the only one that addresses post traumatic stress after an especially difficult childbirth.I guess the biggest thing it did for me is showed me I wasn't alone, and I wasn't crazy! I can't say it "cured" me, but definitely worth the read if you're struggling with your birth experience.

Wonderful, sensitive, kind treatment of birth trauma

This book represents one-of-a-kind treatment of the emotional havoc that a traumatic birth can have on a mother, and in turn her partner and baby. It is particularly effective in utilizing the birth stories of three women (including the author herself), which come from a spectrum of birth-traumatic experiences: the unnecessary cesearean, the absolutely necessary cesearean, and the highly manipulated vaginal birth. Through the accounts of these three women, a pathway is shown for many to follow in coming to terms with their own birth trauma. Perhaps the most commendable aspect of Madsen's treatment of the subject is that she choses to acknowledge birth trauma and the possible depression that follows as something other than "just hormonal," and even makes a good case for birth trauma being a particular instance of post-traumatic stress syndrome.Besides the much-appreciated acknowledgment (to this reader, at any rate) that birth trauma is not merely unjustified self-pity, Madsen provides very concrete ways of coming to terms with what has happened and pushing on with life. Each chapter has "journal topics" for women to think, write or talk about. She also includes an entire chapter, "Creative Tools for Recovery," which details several more pathways, including art, writing, storytelling, dreams, bodywork, among others.Not only is this book a must-read for any woman who has had a less than ideal birth, it would be highly recommended to people who have contact with new moms, including partners (who may have their own birth stress as well), doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, counselors, and so forth.