Birth Trauma Therapy in Palm Desert

Birth Trauma Therapy in Palm Desert

You knew that birth is impossible to fully prepare for and you felt ready enough for what it might look like. You knew there would be deviations from what you wrote in your birth plan but felt confident in your providers and in the supports you chose to have present with you. What you weren't totally prepared for were the feelings you have been left with after your birth.

You find yourself feeling angry that you weren't respected in the birthing room, that you weren't communicated with by those around you who you entrusted to protect you. Maybe your birth ended in an emergency cesarean you didn't expect, or your baby was rushed away to the NICU at Eisenhower Medical Center or Desert Regional Medical Center before you even had a chance to hold them. You have a baby, maybe even a healthy one, and yet you are left with all of these aftershocks from your birth that no one warned you about and no one around you seems to understand.

When Your Baby Went to the NICU

For parents in the Coachella Valley whose babies were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, whether at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, or transferred to a facility further from home, the experience can be profoundly traumatic in its own right.

You sat beside an incubator instead of recovering with your baby in your arms. You watched monitors and listened for alarms while other new parents were going home. You may have felt helpless, terrified, guilty, or completely numb. Even after your baby came home safe and healthy, the images from those days in the NICU may still play on a loop in your mind. You might find yourself bracing for something to go wrong, struggling to bond, or feeling like you are grieving a birth experience that was stolen from you.

What you went through was real. NICU trauma is birth trauma, and it deserves to be treated that way. You do not have to minimize it because your baby came home.

You Are Reliving Your Birth Every Day

Whether your trauma happened in the delivery room or in the days your baby spent under NICU care, you find yourself replaying it over and over, unable to stop the movie that runs without your consent or control. You feel angry, sad, lonely, and disappointed in the way things unfolded. You are going through the motions of cuddling and caring for your baby, but inside you feel numb and detached.

You notice you are having a hard time connecting with your baby because baby brings up immediate memories of the birth and the NICU, and the feelings are unpleasant and overwhelming.

You Don't Recognize Yourself

You were excited to welcome this baby into the world and now you find yourself crying, isolating from those around you, and feeling detached from your baby. You may have feelings of rage or anger toward your partner or others who were present…why didn't they intervene? Why didn't they do more? Or maybe you are directing that anger inward, wondering what you could have done differently, even though you know logically that the answer is nothing.

Was Your Birth Traumatic?

Birth trauma doesn't require a single dramatic moment. It can look like many different things:

•  You felt you were not treated respectfully or spoken to before your body was moved or maneuvered in the birthing room.

•  There were complications and providers spoke to each other instead of to you.

•  You were afraid that your life or the life of your baby was at risk.

•  You were left feeling afraid or panicked in the delivery room.

•  Your baby was taken to the NICU without a clear explanation of what was happening.

•  You had to leave the hospital without your baby.

If you recognize yourself in any of the above, what you experienced matters, and it can be treated.

You Are Ready to Start Feeling Better

For many women, childbirth itself is a trauma that impacts her ability to live life the way she did before, affects bonding with her infant, and sometimes even the way she is able to feed her baby. Women who experience a medical event during pregnancy or delivery, as well as women whose babies experience a medical event, including NICU admission, can develop postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder (postpartum PTSD). This is a real, diagnosable condition, and it can be treated with supportive, specialized therapy.

You do not have to suffer alone. There is help and treatment available to you right here in the Coachella Valley.

Birth Trauma Therapy in Palm Desert with Lauren Fox, LCSW, PMH-C

As a Perinatal Mental Health Certified (PMH-C) therapist in Palm Desert, I specialize in helping women heal from traumatic childbirth experiences, including emergency deliveries, birth injuries, and NICU admissions. I work from an integrative approach drawing on Somatic Experiencing, mindfulness, CBT, and hypnotherapy to help your nervous system finally feel safe enough to process what happened.

I know that it can be hard to find a therapist in the desert who truly specializes in this. My entire practice is built around the perinatal period, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the transition to motherhood, so when you work with me, you are not explaining the basics. You are meeting someone who has spent her career understanding exactly what you are going through.

Contact me today at 805-930-9355 or click below to schedule your free 15-minute consultation. You do not have to keep reliving this. You can heal.

Serving the Coachella Valley and Beyond

In-person therapy is available on El Paseo in Palm Desert, CA. Online therapy is available throughout California, including Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Cathedral City, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, Bermuda Dunes, Desert Hot Springs, Yucca Valley, and Joshua Tree.

Whether you delivered at Eisenhower Medical Center, Desert Regional Medical Center, Hi-Desert Medical Center, or a facility outside the valley, birth trauma therapy is available for you, in the office or from the comfort of your home.