Guernsey mother calls for birth trauma support groups

A mother and charity worker in Guernsey says there needs to be more opportunity to speak about birth trauma.

Nikki, who works with the Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation (PPBF), experienced several difficulties during her pregnancy and daughter’s birth in 2011.

She had planned to have caesarean section. But, due to the weight of her baby during the procedure, her uterus flopped over instead of contracting, causing a haemorrhage.

She said: “You’re very much on your own trying to process everything. It’s really important to be able to share that”.

Maicie was born two weeks premature on 21 June 2011. Despite this, she was the size of a three-month-old.

Nikki said looking back at her birth was still scary and “it took me a long time to come to terms and try and understand what had happened”.

She was taken into intensive care while Maicie was taken to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) after the birth.

Nikki said: “Because I had been a planned caesarean, I had been to the unit before.

“It was reassuring for me knowing she was in good hands without really understanding what I was going through and how close I was to possibly not making it.”

At the time of Maicie’s birth, there was not much post-trauma help for people such as her to be able to talk about what they went through.

Nikki was, however, given some books by the Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation (PPBF).

She realised after a few months that she wanted to get involved with the charity as it helped her in her time of need and now acts as an ambassador for it.

Typically the PPBF deals with premature babies, but its work also covers babies and families who are unwell in birth.

Nikki said: “It’s really important to talk about what has happened when you’re ready.

“It would be great to have a support network around you that can share similar experiences, as there are a lot of people that go though quite traumatic experience during birth.

“For me, it meant that I decided not to have more children.

“After I got the courage to go and speak to the specialist about it, one thing that concerned me was what was the chances of it happening again.

“I didn’t want to leave my child without a mother”.