[13th July 2026] It’s Birth Trauma Awareness Week, a moment to take stock of the impact of birth trauma and to bring it back into the open. In 2024, Theo Clarke published the Birth Trauma Inquiry, catapulting birth trauma into the headlines with its astounding findings. The inquiry showed that 4 – 5% of women develop PTSD after giving birth, that’s 30,000 women every year. It is noteworthy that many women who experience difficult births may not self-identify these as ‘traumatic’ and who are therefore not reflected in those statistics.
Birth trauma is far more common than many people realise. Women can experience terrifying memories, unanswered questions and intense emotions and often find there are very few places to turn. That is why we created Restore, our online birth trauma group, a safe space for healing. We spoke to Natelie and Siobhann, specialist therapists who run the group, to find out more about the themes which often come up in the group.
One of the hardest parts of birth trauma is how isolating it can feel.
After birth, attention naturally turns to the new baby. Friends and family ask how much they’re sleeping, whether they’re feeding well, and who they look like. While these conversations are well-intentioned, many mums describe feeling as though they have disappeared.
They are expected to be grateful, to be coping, and to be enjoying motherhood.
Meanwhile, they may be struggling in silence, with memories or trying to understand what has happened to them. Anxiety and low mood are common, as well as PTSD symptoms, which often are put down to “baby blues” or stress but are significantly impactful.
Mums may feel unable to tell anyone because they worry they’ll be judged for not feeling the happiness they think they’re supposed to feel. Many women feel they have to “just get on with it.” They minimise their own experience because they believe that, as long as their baby is healthy, they shouldn’t complain.
But birth trauma and its impact needs to be acknowledged – you, mum, deserve care.
If you felt frightened, powerless, unheard or unsafe during your baby’s birth, those feelings matter.
Alongside trauma often comes guilt. Some mothers feel guilty because they believe they somehow failed during labour or birth, even when events were completely outside their control. Others feel guilty because they aren’t experiencing the joyful connection with their baby that they expected.
They may wonder why they don’t feel the overwhelming love everyone talks about. They may struggle to bond, feel emotionally numb, or find themselves simply trying to get through each day.
This can lead to another layer of painful self-judgement:
“What kind of mum am I?”
“Why can’t I enjoy this?”
“Am I damaging my baby?”
The truth is that trauma affects the brain, body and emotions. When someone has experienced something frightening or overwhelming, it can make it incredibly difficult to feel calm, present and emotionally available.
This does not make you a bad mother. It makes you someone who has experienced trauma and deserves support.
You don’t have to pretend you’re okay
One of the most important things we want women to know is that they don’t have to keep carrying this alone.
Talking about birth trauma can feel incredibly difficult, especially if time has passed or when everyone around you seems to have moved on. But your experience matters, and there is a lot of healing that comes from being heard, believed, and supported.
Many women tell us that coming together with a group of women who have been through something similar helps them know that someone truly understands what they’ve been carrying.
Meeting the ‘new you’ with compassion
Becoming a mother changes us in countless ways. Alongside the joy and love that many women experience, motherhood can also bring unfamiliar emotions that feel difficult to recognise or accept—especially after a traumatic birth.
Some mums find themselves feeling angry, irritable or frustrated in ways they never have before. Others notice they are constantly on edge, easily overwhelmed, or feel a deep sadness that seems to appear out of nowhere. These feelings can be frightening, particularly if they don’t fit with the image of the calm, patient parent they hoped to be.
When these emotions arise, many women judge themselves harshly. They feel guilty for feeling angry, ashamed for becoming frustrated, or worried that these emotions mean they are failing as a mother. But these responses are often part of living through trauma. They are not a reflection of your love for your baby or your ability to parent.
Part of the healing journey is learning to understand and accept these new parts of yourself with kindness, rather than fear or self-criticism. Rather than asking, “Why am I like this?”, it can be more helpful to ask, “What is this part of me trying to tell me?”
Trauma therapy can help mums make sense of these emotions, understand where they come from, and learn healthier ways to respond to them. As understanding grows, so too does self-compassion.
Healing isn’t about becoming the person you were before your baby’s birth. It’s about learning to embrace who you are now—including the parts of yourself that have emerged through difficult experiences—and recognising that these feelings do not define you. They are signals that you deserve care, support and understanding, not more guilt.
Recovery doesn’t need to involve discussing your trauma details or, on the other hand, forgetting. It means learning to process the experience so that it no longer dominates your daily life. With the right support, it is possible to reduce feelings of fear, anxiety and guilt, strengthen the relationship with your baby, and begin to feel more like yourself again.
At MumsAid, as well as the Restore group, we offer specialist trauma therapy for mums who have experienced traumatic births or other perinatal trauma. Our experienced therapists provide a safe, compassionate space where women can begin to make sense of their experiences and move towards recovery at their own pace.
No mother should feel she has to suffer in silence.
If you’d like to find out more about our trauma therapy for mums, or our Restore group, or simply to speak to someone about the support available, we’d be happy to hear from you. You can self-refer via our website, and you do not need to have any formal diagnosis to do this. Please do get in touch.