Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #594 Birth Trauma: A Conversation With Sharon Stoliar

Transcript

#594 Birth Trauma: A Conversation With Sharon Stoliar · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
0:05
Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
0:09
Speaker 2: wants answers Now.
0:10
Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to the Happy
0:13
Speaker 3: Families Podcast. I look forward to Wednesdays every week because
0:16
Speaker 3: I get to talk to interesting people about their lives
0:18
Speaker 3: and parenting and what we can learn about making life
0:20
Speaker 3: better today. Having a conversation with Sharon Sotolier. Sharon is
0:25
Speaker 3: a registered midwife and registered nurse and has recently written
0:29
Speaker 3: a book called Scars of Gold. The book comes out
0:32
Speaker 3: in the next couple of months, and I'm kind of
0:35
Speaker 3: getting a sneak peek into Sharon's life and her story
0:39
Speaker 3: about birth trauma. Sharon's been in touch and has shared
0:43
Speaker 3: her personal story in this book, and it made me
0:46
Speaker 3: think this is a conversation that we just don't have enough. Sharon,
0:51
Speaker 3: Welcome to a Happy Families podcast. It's great to have
0:53
Speaker 3: you here.
0:53
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Justine.
0:55
Speaker 3: Sharon, you've shared your story in this book, Scars of Gold,
0:57
Speaker 3: and I've been privileged to be able to read a
0:59
Speaker 3: little bit of it. It would you just give us
1:03
Speaker 3: a brief version of what you went through from a
1:06
Speaker 3: trauma perspective, as you went through your first labor as
1:11
Speaker 3: a registered midwife, somebody who knows what's supposed to be
1:13
Speaker 3: happening and knows how it's all supposed to go.
1:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:17
Speaker 2: Look, I think that was an interesting dimension for me,
1:19
Speaker 2: especially afterwards when I reflected on my experience.
1:23
Speaker 1: Going in through the labor. I knew what was happening
1:26
Speaker 1: to me.
1:27
Speaker 2: I was really fortunate in that my midwife who looked
1:30
Speaker 2: after me during labor was also a friend, and she knew.
1:33
Speaker 1: What to do, how to advocate for me.
1:35
Speaker 2: But what happened, I had an emergency sincearian, and you
1:39
Speaker 2: know what, that was all fine because I knew at
1:42
Speaker 2: that point there was no other option. So I was
1:45
Speaker 2: able to accept that this is one.
1:46
Speaker 3: Of those things where people have this desire, this dream
1:50
Speaker 3: that they're going to go in with their birth plan
1:51
Speaker 3: and everything's going to go exactly the way it's supposed
1:53
Speaker 3: to go, and they're going to breathe through it. They're
1:55
Speaker 3: going to have all the support they need, and the
1:56
Speaker 3: baby's going to be born exactly the quote unquote right way.
2:01
Speaker 3: And even as a midwife, you don't get to choose,
2:03
Speaker 3: do you. Sometimes things happen and all of a sudden
2:06
Speaker 3: you're in there with with the epidural block and you're
2:11
Speaker 3: having the emergency Caesar. This, this was not part of
2:13
Speaker 3: your plan.
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Speaker 2: Great, The only plan I actually had was to push
2:18
Speaker 2: my baby out and go home in four hours. That
2:21
Speaker 2: was legitimately the only thing I desperately wanted because for
2:25
Speaker 2: me being in a personat Award, it is work. For me,
2:29
Speaker 2: that's where I worked, And you.
2:31
Speaker 3: Don't want to be hanging out there after you've had
2:32
Speaker 3: the baby, Right, let's get out of here.
2:34
Speaker 1: No, I don't want to hear buzzers.
2:36
Speaker 2: I don't want to, you know, feel like I'm at
2:39
Speaker 2: work when I'm transitioning into motherhood, especially for the first time. Unfortunately,
2:43
Speaker 2: I ended up being hospital for fifteen days after I
2:46
Speaker 2: had my son. You know, I was able to accept everything,
2:50
Speaker 2: even the cesarean.
2:51
Speaker 1: That for me was fine.
2:54
Speaker 3: So what happened after the C section?
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Speaker 2: So what happened was I had this very rare complication
2:59
Speaker 2: which time no one knew what it was. I had
3:03
Speaker 2: this pain in my leg that just started getting worse
3:06
Speaker 2: and my leg, my right leg was swelling. Often after cesarean,
3:11
Speaker 2: it's normal to have a bit of swelling in both legs,
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Speaker 2: what we call it dema. My right leg was markedly
3:17
Speaker 2: more swollen, and throughout the afternoon it was just getting
3:20
Speaker 2: worse and worse.
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Speaker 1: I was complaining of the pain.
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Speaker 2: It was visible that I was deteriorating, but I wasn't
3:29
Speaker 2: taken seriously. I felt I had that expectation that because
3:34
Speaker 2: especially because I'm a midwife, to get up, get on
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Speaker 2: with it. You know, what are you complaining about? You
3:40
Speaker 2: know what to do. But by the time the doctor
3:44
Speaker 2: came to see me, you know, I was dismissed again.
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Speaker 1: She just said, oh, you must have bumped it in labor.
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Speaker 2: You must have bumped it on the bedrail going from
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Speaker 2: the labor room to the operating theaters.
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Speaker 1: And I knew I hadn't.
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Speaker 2: I think being dismissed when I was saying I hadn't
4:01
Speaker 2: made me second guess myself.
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Speaker 3: It's almost like the medical establishment embarked on a little
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Speaker 3: gas lighting procedure against you.
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Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, you.
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Speaker 3: Know what your experience is. You're a midwife, and and
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Speaker 3: it makes me think as I hear you say that
4:14
Speaker 3: you've got all this medical experience you used to you're
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Speaker 3: a clinical midwife, you're used to being in these situations,
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Speaker 3: and you're being dismissed what must it be like for
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Speaker 3: the for the average non medically trained mum who is
4:26
Speaker 3: going through labor for the first or even for the
4:27
Speaker 3: sixth time something goes wrong, complains about it, and there's
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Speaker 3: that ongoing dismissal. I mean, it's a terrible indictment on
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Speaker 3: the medical profession generally, isn't it when you have a
4:36
Speaker 3: serious situation like this.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely? And you know, when I was in that in that.
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Speaker 2: Bed without my work uniform on, without my work badge,
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Speaker 2: I just suddenly felt a stripped of all my power
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Speaker 2: and identity.
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Speaker 1: Who was I?
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Speaker 2: I thought I was this knowledgeable midwife and you know, professional,
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Speaker 2: and here I was, and I'm telling my health care providers,
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Speaker 2: my maternity care providers, I'm in pain.
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Speaker 1: This is not normal.
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Speaker 2: Later on, having the midwife who looked after me and
5:10
Speaker 2: labor came to visit me, and I even asked her,
5:12
Speaker 2: because I had doubted myself so much by then, and
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Speaker 2: did I bout my leg? And she said, no, absolutely not.
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Speaker 2: Nothing happened to your leg. And even after that, I
5:23
Speaker 2: was still dismissed. My pain just got worse and worse.
5:25
Speaker 2: And by the middle of the night, when it was
5:29
Speaker 2: so bad and.
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Speaker 1: My mom was with me that night.
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Speaker 2: She helped me take off the stoppings that we put
5:35
Speaker 2: on our legs after having a cesarean, the compression star yeah,
5:40
Speaker 2: and instantly my leg ballooned. Oh my gosh, it just ballooned,
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Speaker 2: like right in front of my eyes.
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Speaker 1: It was just agony, like nothing worked.
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Speaker 2: They said, move the leg, put it on a pillow,
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Speaker 2: heat pack, ice pack.
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Speaker 1: Nothing worked.
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Speaker 2: I mean, at least in labor you get a break,
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Speaker 2: you get a minute between the contraptions at least, but
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Speaker 2: this was just I have no words.
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Speaker 1: It was exquisite pain, agony.
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Speaker 2: And it was so swollen you could put a fist
6:11
Speaker 2: into my ankle and the imprint would still be there.
6:15
Speaker 3: Some bump you must have had that. That doctor said
6:18
Speaker 3: it must be some crazy pumps exactly.
6:21
Speaker 2: And you know, I had a neurologist come in to
6:24
Speaker 2: see me and he said, oh, you must have compartment syndrome.
6:27
Speaker 1: Get an MRI.
6:28
Speaker 2: But then the other doctors said, we've never seen it
6:32
Speaker 2: after having a baby. It can't possibly be a compartment syndrome,
6:35
Speaker 2: so it can't be.
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Speaker 1: So they just dismissed that option.
6:39
Speaker 2: And I went and went on and on and on,
6:42
Speaker 2: unable to walk, unable to wait, be needing to use
6:44
Speaker 2: bedpants to go to the toilet.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I was a twenty.
6:48
Speaker 2: Six year old young mom in bed with a brand
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Speaker 2: new baby. Like my whole sense of self was shaken,
6:56
Speaker 2: oh while the hormone's home of new motherhood just raging
7:02
Speaker 2: through me. I was crying all the time in those
7:06
Speaker 2: fifteen days, just all the time. The only thing that
7:09
Speaker 2: kept me going was my beautiful son that I had there.
7:12
Speaker 1: But eventually, on.
7:14
Speaker 2: Day ten, I had another MRI which confirmed I had,
7:17
Speaker 2: in fact had acute compartment syndrome. And by then it
7:21
Speaker 2: was too late to do the fasciodimy, which is the
7:25
Speaker 2: cut into the fascia of the muscle to relieve the pressure,
7:28
Speaker 2: because by then all the dummage had already been done,
7:31
Speaker 2: and so they had to just treat me conservatively by then.
7:35
Speaker 2: And I just always think had they listened to me
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Speaker 2: at the start when I said, no, this is not normal,
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Speaker 2: I'm in pain.
7:41
Speaker 1: You need to do something. The morphine's not working.
7:45
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think, well, maybe I could have got the
7:48
Speaker 2: treatment I needed then and there, and maybe I wouldn't
7:51
Speaker 2: be dealing with the consequences that I'm still dealing with now.
7:55
Speaker 2: I have a dead nerve from my knee down to
7:59
Speaker 2: my big toe. My balance has been significantly affected over
8:03
Speaker 2: these ten years. I still need to see a physio
8:06
Speaker 2: twice a week still. You know, if someone bumps into
8:10
Speaker 2: me now and I'm not expecting it.
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Speaker 1: I will fall. I still have falls.
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Speaker 2: There's been significant physical consequences for me.
8:18
Speaker 3: I'm speaking with Sharon Stollier. Sharon is the author of
8:21
Speaker 3: the forthcoming book Scars of Gold. Sharon, you're an intelligent human.
8:26
Speaker 3: You've got a registered midwife qualification, you're an RN, you
8:31
Speaker 3: have a master's Public Health and Master of International Public Health,
8:34
Speaker 3: and you're currently enrolled in a PhD. After the break,
8:37
Speaker 3: we're going to talk about birth trauma, what it actually is,
8:41
Speaker 3: the various ways that it can show up, because there
8:43
Speaker 3: are so many ways that it can, and the project
8:46
Speaker 3: that you've embarked on to help mothers who have been
8:49
Speaker 3: through their own forms of birth trauma to get the
8:52
Speaker 3: help that they need. If you could read your daughter's mind,
8:58
Speaker 3: what would you hear? Teen girls who are anxious about
9:01
Speaker 3: fitting in and struggling to find happiness and they need you,
9:05
Speaker 3: mum and dad to be there as they tackle these
9:08
Speaker 3: challenges and much more Misconnection is the cutting edge, science
9:12
Speaker 3: backed book you need to get deep into your daughter's
9:15
Speaker 3: mind and connect about the things that matter to her.
9:18
Speaker 3: Available at The Happy Family's Shop online. It's the Happy
9:22
Speaker 3: Famili's podcast, the podcast for the time poor parent who
9:24
Speaker 3: just wants answers. Now I'm speaking with Sharon Stollier, who's
9:28
Speaker 3: the author of the forthcoming book Scars of Gold. She's
9:31
Speaker 3: just shared her traumatic birth story. Sharon, birth is traumatic,
9:36
Speaker 3: like childbirth is a trauma in and of itself, what
9:38
Speaker 3: it does to the body, the way that psychology and
9:42
Speaker 3: physiology are affected by this. It's a really big deal
9:45
Speaker 3: to have a baby. Having sat in a birthing suite
9:48
Speaker 3: and supported my wife through six labors, five of which
9:51
Speaker 3: were what you would call a natural birth with minimal
9:55
Speaker 3: pain relief, and then one that ended up being an
9:57
Speaker 3: emergency sea section, witnessed the immensity of the unspeakable miracle
10:06
Speaker 3: of what this can be. But obviously it is not
10:09
Speaker 3: the miraculous, joyful, beautiful, perfect moment that I've experienced. For
10:14
Speaker 3: every woman, for every family that goes through this, Can
10:18
Speaker 3: you tell us exactly what birth trauma is?
10:21
Speaker 2: Yes?
10:21
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
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Speaker 2: Look, first of all, I am so happy to hear
10:26
Speaker 2: that your family has experienced positive birth births, it's really
10:32
Speaker 2: nice to hear that.
10:33
Speaker 3: Well, I say that, I meanly might not say that,
10:35
Speaker 3: but I say that in that we were crying and
10:38
Speaker 3: laughing and we were happy at the end of it all,
10:39
Speaker 3: and there were no long term repercussions, well, minimal long
10:43
Speaker 3: term repercussions. There's always some, right.
10:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, but you know birth is supposed to
10:49
Speaker 2: be a joyful, happy event. Yes, of course, it's a
10:53
Speaker 2: physically difficult you know for women they're pushing a baby
10:58
Speaker 2: out of their body or having cesarean. But the statistics
11:03
Speaker 2: show us that anywhere from twenty to forty eight percent
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Speaker 2: of women around the world are describing their birth as traumatic.
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Speaker 2: In Australia it's one in three births.
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Speaker 3: But that's staggering. That's such a.
11:16
Speaker 1: Lot lot staggerage.
11:18
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And a research study in Queensland, actually quite a
11:22
Speaker 2: large study found it to be as high as forty
11:26
Speaker 2: five point five percent of all birds. That's almost one
11:29
Speaker 2: in two births. And it's really worrying statistics when you
11:33
Speaker 2: compare it to other diseases and conditions that have a
11:36
Speaker 2: spotlight on it in society. Birth trauma is neglected and
11:40
Speaker 2: we really need to do something about that.
11:42
Speaker 3: So how do we find it though, how do we
11:43
Speaker 3: actually I mean, because we've got somebody who's saying, yes,
11:46
Speaker 3: I think it was traumatic. That's kind of different to
11:49
Speaker 3: somebody saying we've met the criteria for what birth trauma
11:53
Speaker 3: actually is. Do we have a clear definition of what
11:56
Speaker 3: it is or does it simply come down to a
11:58
Speaker 3: subjective sense of trauma?
12:00
Speaker 2: Yes, so birth trama really is in the eye of
12:03
Speaker 2: the beholder. So in fact, like a lot of people
12:05
Speaker 2: don't know what birth romads, and many people mistakenly believe
12:10
Speaker 2: that it only relates to a physical injury that happened
12:13
Speaker 2: during the birth, but birth traumas it's often a psychological response.
12:18
Speaker 2: In essence, it's any form of physical or psychological injury.
12:22
Speaker 1: Or damage that can occur during or.
12:24
Speaker 2: After childbirth's and it's really up to how the mother
12:29
Speaker 2: perceives her birth was. Some women will meet the full
12:33
Speaker 2: criteria for PTSD, but even though not all women do
12:38
Speaker 2: develop that we have to recognize that if we've got
12:42
Speaker 2: almost half the population of birthing women in Australia saying
12:45
Speaker 2: their birth is traumatic, well, what is it, why and
12:48
Speaker 2: what's causing it. Women can say their birth is traumatic
12:52
Speaker 2: because of tearing because of an unexpected cesarian like you
12:56
Speaker 2: were talking about before, they had a birth plan and
12:59
Speaker 2: it didn't go to plan and they weren't expecting that.
13:02
Speaker 1: That can be traumatic.
13:04
Speaker 2: What causes trauma for someone can be very different for
13:08
Speaker 2: another birthing woman. Maybe if I wasn't a midwife, having
13:11
Speaker 2: that emergency cesarian might have been traumatic for me, But
13:14
Speaker 2: for me, it wasn't traumatic that I had a cesarean
13:17
Speaker 2: despite planning to push the baby out.
13:20
Speaker 3: So I may lose a whole lot of support for
13:22
Speaker 3: what I'm about to say, and I want to be sensitive.
13:25
Speaker 3: I know I'm a male. I know that I don't
13:27
Speaker 3: have to go through this, and therefore, in some ways
13:30
Speaker 3: my question here may be unfair and it could be
13:34
Speaker 3: completely inappropriate, but I'm going to ask it anyway. The
13:37
Speaker 3: cynic might say birth is traumatic, it always has been
13:41
Speaker 3: and it always will be, and maybe the numbers are
13:43
Speaker 3: wrong at forty five percent. Another cynic might say, well,
13:47
Speaker 3: we're just not resilient like we used to be. I mean,
13:50
Speaker 3: I know from being through this with my wife six times,
13:53
Speaker 3: and obviously she's the one that did it, but we
13:56
Speaker 3: have shared and laughed about the traumatic birth stories that
14:00
Speaker 3: we experience with our kids, and use that word fairly
14:03
Speaker 3: loosely and fairly blithely to describe the absolute terror that
14:10
Speaker 3: can wash over a woman and her partner as she
14:16
Speaker 3: goes through that birthing process. I mean, there have been
14:18
Speaker 3: times where I've looked at Kylie and thought, I don't
14:21
Speaker 3: think she can make it. I don't think she can
14:22
Speaker 3: do it, and it's been terrifying for me. I can't
14:24
Speaker 3: imagine what she's gone through. I believe that trauma, as
14:28
Speaker 3: much as we've laughed about it, may be an appropriate
14:31
Speaker 3: word for almost every birth, and so part of me wonders,
14:36
Speaker 3: are we pathologizing and traumatizing a natural but actual traumatic process.
14:45
Speaker 2: I think, yes, it might be traumatizing physically because you
14:49
Speaker 2: know you're going through that massive physiological process, because there's.
14:53
Speaker 3: A tearror, or because there's just there's something that pops somewhere.
14:59
Speaker 2: But you know, the research shows us that when women
15:03
Speaker 2: have been well supported during their labor and birth, and
15:08
Speaker 2: they've had respectful maternity care, it doesn't matter the outcome,
15:13
Speaker 2: they still perceive their experience as being positive, so and
15:17
Speaker 2: they come out feeling empowered and joyful, and they often
15:22
Speaker 2: transition to motherhood better than those who come out feeling
15:27
Speaker 2: they had a traumatic birth. And I think it needs
15:29
Speaker 2: we need to come back to the you know, the
15:32
Speaker 2: impact of true birth trauma.
15:34
Speaker 3: So, Sharon, that's a really really helpful answer to my question,
15:38
Speaker 3: because in spite of the quote unquote trauma that Kylie's experiences,
15:43
Speaker 3: we've gone through these six labors, we've always, always, except
15:47
Speaker 3: in one case, felt that we've had really supportive medical staff.
15:51
Speaker 3: I've been well trained as well as a support person
15:54
Speaker 3: in that I know how to guide Kylie through those contractions,
15:57
Speaker 3: how to time them, how to remind her that it's
16:00
Speaker 3: a wave, it's washing in, it's washing out, how to
16:02
Speaker 3: keep her lips loose so that she can remain loose
16:05
Speaker 3: through the birthing process itself. I've been well trained in that.
16:09
Speaker 3: In fact, I've just written a book about that, because
16:12
Speaker 3: dads need to have that knowledge stuff that they can
16:14
Speaker 3: be the support that's necessary. And I love what you've
16:18
Speaker 3: said so that the overall experience doesn't reflect a traumatic moment,
16:24
Speaker 3: And I think that's the great I love the way
16:27
Speaker 3: you've answered that. It's so so wonderfully helpful. Sharon, our
16:30
Speaker 3: time is done, but if people want to if people
16:33
Speaker 3: want to know, it goes so fast, doesn't it. If
16:35
Speaker 3: people want to communicate more with you about your book,
16:37
Speaker 3: about your experience, about their experience, if they want to
16:41
Speaker 3: be part of your Ending Birth Trauma project, or be
16:44
Speaker 3: involved with the PhD research that you're doing right now
16:48
Speaker 3: as you pursue your doctorate. What's the best way for
16:51
Speaker 3: people to contact you and learn about your book, get
16:53
Speaker 3: a copy of it, and maybe even contribute to the
16:57
Speaker 3: conversation that you're creating.
16:58
Speaker 1: I have website ending birth trauma dot com.
17:02
Speaker 2: If you want to receive updates on when the book
17:06
Speaker 2: will be released and get pre release discounted rate, you
17:11
Speaker 2: can sign up on Ending birth Trauma dot com. Or
17:14
Speaker 2: I can be contacted on Sharonstollier at gmail dot com.
17:18
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me repeat that We've got Sharon Stollier,
17:21
Speaker 3: that's st l at gmail dot com. You've got the
17:24
Speaker 3: website ending Birthtrauma dot com, and you've also got Instagram
17:29
Speaker 3: at ending birth Trauma. We will link to all of
17:32
Speaker 3: those methods that people can contact you in our podcast
17:35
Speaker 3: show notes. Sharon, what a delight to have this conversation
17:39
Speaker 3: with you. I think that in spite of my potentially
17:42
Speaker 3: insensitive question, you've done a really great job in explaining
17:46
Speaker 3: what we can do to reduce birth trauma and help
17:48
Speaker 3: people to help mothers to have positive birth experiences. And
17:51
Speaker 3: I think that your book, Scars of Gold is going
17:53
Speaker 3: to resonate with so many people. Good luck with the
17:55
Speaker 3: book when it comes out. And thank you so much
17:57
Speaker 3: for joining me on the podcast.
17:59
Speaker 1: Thank you so sovery much, Justin, and I appreciate it.
18:01
Speaker 1: Thanks for your time.
18:02
Speaker 3: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
18:05
Speaker 3: Bridge Media and Craig Brewce is our executive producer. If
18:08
Speaker 3: you want more info about anything we've talked about today,
18:11
Speaker 3: we'll link to everything in the show notes that Scars
18:13
Speaker 3: have Gold of the book, the website Ending Birth Trauma
18:16
Speaker 3: dot com, and Sharon's contact details in case you want
18:19
Speaker 3: to continue the conversation with her. And if you'd like
18:22
Speaker 3: morefol about making your family happier, you can visit happyfamilies
18:24
Speaker 3: dot com dot you