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Making birth a better experience for all

Our Make Birth Better Campaign

Where the seed was planted.

 
 

Our first campaign started in August 2017, during Birth Trauma Awareness Week, when Co-founder Dr Emma Svanberg shared a post on Instagram explaining the difference between Postnatal Depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Women contacted her throughout the day sharing their stories: how they had been deeply affected by their births but felt unable to speak about them. Emma analysed these stories with five themes emerging. The seed was planted for Make Birth Better.

 
“I came around an hour after he was born, to be told I’d been “asleep”. At that point I had no idea whether he had been born, whether he was alive.”
— F.C. - Theme 1: A force bigger than me

The themes

 

THEME 1. A Force Bigger Than Me: the physical impact of birth.

This theme described the physicality of birth. When this was positive, women were awed by the power of their bodies. When this was difficult, women were shocked by the arduous nature of birth, found pain difficult to manage and at times were left with physical injuries due to their experience. 

THEME 2. Heroes and Villains: the influence of birth professionals.

The second theme summarised just how important birth professionals are – and often this was individual members of staff. Women regularly felt very let down by those who they expected to support them. There was acknowledgement that this was often due to service pressures, although not always. Women also felt cheated by the information they had received prior to birth, noting that they needed more information about labour in general, and a more balanced view of birth.

THEME 3. Delivery into Parenthood: the wider-ranging impact on mental health and relationships.

The impact of a difficult birth, of course, was not just physical. Psychological symptoms were outlined, as well as the wider ranging, long-term impact of these symptoms. Women also described the ways in which their births had impacted their relationships with their children. It influenced their decisions about subsequent pregnancies, with many choosing not to have further children.

THEME 4. I Had No Idea: the culture of secrecy around birth and birth trauma.

This theme described the culture of secrecy and pressure to ‘suffer in silence’ throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. Women seemed to feel that they were unprepared for birth, that many things during birth came as a total shock. During and after birth, they described messages (both actual and imagined) that led them to feel that they could or should not speak about their feelings.

THEME 5. Make Birth Better: ideas to improve birth.

During the campaign, women and birthing professionals were asked to include their thoughts on what would ‘make birth better’ in their stories: this was included as Theme 5. Dr Emma Svanberg divided these into messages applicable throughout the maternity journey: for pregnant women and their partners, maternity professionals and wider society. Theme 5 was a big accelerator for the start of Make Birth Better and encouraged Emma to write her book Why Birth Trauma Matters.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Want to return back to the summary of all Make Birth Better Campaigns?

 
 
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