Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Similar Emotions

Whatever emotions you may have after your c-section are perfectly fine, and don't let others tell you otherwise or make you think you shouldn't have those feelings. Take the time to process, grieve or as some say mourn the birth. In my research I found many websites and books that talked about the mental effect c-sections can have on women and it was comforting to know I was not alone. "Many women recover fully physically and emotionally from a cesarean birth, others do not."--Nicette Jukelevics, MA, ICCE.

One great website is www.ican-online.org. This quote I read seems to sum up how I was feeling. "
Realize that there is more to birth than a "healthy baby" and that even the healthiest of babies can come through a traumatic event to the mother. You have the right to mourn your birth and your trauma while celebrating your child. These are two different events in your life, even if they are happening simultaneously."

So you can see how you can have different emotions from overwhelming happiness in having a precious baby but at the same time a sadness of how the birth happened.

On the website http://www.vbac.com/emotionalscars.html they even show how women who have c-sections are more likely to have postpartum depression and even Post-traumatic stress disorder.

So as I said before let your emotions come out and if you need to talk to someone to help you through it I encourage you to do that. If you have gone through similar emotions I would love for you to share. Hearing that these feelings are ok and normal can help another person tremendously. It took me awhile to sort through my own feelings but as time went on I healed. However a few years later all of that came flooding back to me and I again had to take time to process.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing this. I felt tremendous guilt at not being incredibly happy after my csection. I didn't realize at first that it was normal to mourn that lost birth experience. Most of the people in my life did not understand and seemed to want me to 'just get over it and be happy with my healthy baby.' It wasn't until I found other women who felt the same way that I was able to validate those feelings of loss, greive, and begin to recover.

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