A beautiful and empowering birth, or a super challenging and traumatic one (or a mix of the two) can occur in any environment: At home, a birth center, a hospital or anywhere you are birthing.

The list below is some of the things that can occur during a labor and birth that can be experienced as traumatic. I offer this list of scenarios and examples (drawn from my time working in the hospital) so you know you are not alone.

This long list can be triggering - please read with CAUTION, and only when you have support. TRUST your intuition and just scroll past it if you are hesitant or don’t need to read it.

Some of these situations are more frequently experienced, some more rarely. Of note, some traumatic births occur through no fault of anyone. Sometimes the system you are in and the caregivers in that system make it much better, mitigating the amount of trauma, and sometimes they make it worse.

  • A birth that was traumatizing to you even if medically “uncomplicated” or a complicated birth that ended up having a “good outcome” (i.e. the often quoted: “healthy mom, healthy baby”) but that does not cancel out your trauma

  • Experiencing pain you were not prepared for and did not have the support to manage- i.e. a long wait for an epidural

  • An epidural that was not working no matter what was done - you felt trapped with a lack of mobility while in pain

  • Being asked to “wait” for the doctor or midwife to arrive to push or give birth - trying to hold in the baby

  • A birth where it was chaotic, full of fear, many things went wrong and it was like a nightmare. This is often described by those who experienced it as a “shit birth.”

  • Intense terror, fear of losing your life and/or your baby’s life

  • Assisted delivery (vacuum, forceps or episiotomy)

  • Fear of your baby being injured

  • Baby needing resuscitation at delivery

  • Hemorrhage, feeling of life leaving you

  • Scary or poor management of conditions to try to prevent crisis

  • Any number of obstetric emergencies - shoulder dystocia, amniotic fluid embolism, eclamptic seizure, infection, sepsis, emergency cesarean, etc.

  • Having gone under general anesthesia and missing your baby’s birth and first moments

  • Almost losing your life and having a stay in the ICU 


  • Birth trauma compounded by prior sexual abuse or assault (or other forms of abuse or trauma).

  • The birth, although seemingly not traumatic, was actually a triggering event and put you in a trauma response from past sexual assault trauma(s) or abuse

  • Lack of trauma-informed care during childbirth 


  • Not having the people you needed in the birth room/having the wrong people

  • Conflict with your partner or family during labor

  • Not having enough labor support, feeling abandoned or neglected


  • Nurses or doctors saying something unkind or upsetting

  • The “ego” of members of hospital staff or your family “stealing the show”

  • Feeling humiliated or exposed with multiple staff in room

  • Feeling not heard, misunderstood, rushed, pressured

  • Feeling infantilized, patronized or gaslit by the staff

  • Things done to you without explanation, not being spoken “to” but being spoken “about” as if you are not there


  • Obstetric violence/assault

  • Things done without consent or over your objection

  • Consent obtained through coercion

  • Your agency, choices and autonomy dishonored

  • Feeling helpless to say no to procedures/decisions that your gut & heart didn’t want

  • Not enough time to obtain true informed consent or your family had to consent for you


  • Experiencing preterm delivery

  • NICU stay for baby and sustained worry about baby

  • Trauma from separation from your baby immediately after birth - either for a few minutes or much longer

  • Left alone in a room after birth when it feels unsafe - when you are groggy or bleeding excessively- feeling abandoned


  • Feeling regret/shame/guilt about what you felt or didn’t feel towards your baby, or about things you did or said regarding your baby after delivery

  • Emotions around breastfeeding being very difficult and uncertainty/guilt around feeding decisions

  • Anxiety about feeding baby/baby’s wellbeing

  • Profound exhaustion from days of labor and/or surgery and lack of sleep caring for baby


  • Your own physical injuries from complicated vaginal or cesarean birth, either severe or permanent

  • Emergency hysterectomy - losing uterus and the loss of possibility of another pregnancy

  • Your baby being injured or disabled

  • Shock of discovery of birth defects or other health problems at delivery previously unknown

  • Tremendous tragedy of intrauterine death of your baby, stillbirth, or the passing away of your baby shortly after delivery. 


  • After delivery generally feeling torn open physically, mentally, emotionally, psychically. Being “undone” and not knowing how to get back together again

  • Profound sense of loss of self and identity

  • Feeling alone in these feelings

  • PTSD from birth exacerbating postpartum anxiety, depression or rage

  • Regret about decisions made or not made

  • Grief over not having the birth you desired

  • Anger about medical decisions made during your birth


  • Emotions around being a birth parent or surrogate parent or not being the one to carry your baby

  • Infertility struggles, cycles of hope and grief


  • Miscarriages and abortions needing processing /honoring

  • Gynecological trauma around procedures for abortions, miscarriages, surgeries, office procedures such as an exam, biopsy, IUD insertions etc.