Birth Trauma Training for Birth Workers
- 3.5 hours on-demand video
- 32 downloadable resources
- Full lifetime access
- Access on mobile and TV
- Certificate of Completion
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Try Udemy for Business- How to support people through birth trauma
- Trauma informed practice
- Introductory knowledge of perinatal mental health
- Macro and micro self-care
- Post traumatic Growth
- Pros and cons of treatment approaches for trauma
- Implicit bias and language in birth and trauma
- How vicarious trauma impacts your work
- Positive psychology and happiness at work
- How trauma impacts learning and memory
- The mind-body connection
- How trauma affects the 5 senses
- Slay in your lane: debriefs, groups and circles
- Working with partners
- Practical, lifelong coping tools
- An understanding of pregnancy, birth and postpartum
- A birth, health or allied health worker
1 in 3 people experiencing a traumatic birth is WAY too high.
The statistics showing upwards of 15% of midwives and obstetricians developing PTSD from vicarious trauma is WAY too high.
My name is Dr Erin Bowe. This trauma course is like no other. I have the professional background as a clinical psychologist of 10+ years AND the lived experience of two traumatic births. I am the bridge between the research about birth trauma, and the lived experience.
I’ve used these experiences as a conduit for personal growth and strength. I believe that trauma can actually be your biggest teacher. I’m here to teach you how to navigate birth trauma, so that you can have a sustainable career as a birth worker.
This work isn't all darkness and shadow! I teach you to find lightness in without making light of trauma.
You can make phenomenal change. You just have to decide. I can teach you to align your thoughts, words and behaviours to create the strength and resilience you want. To feel confident, calm and like you're actually making a difference to birthing outcomes.
This course is specifically designed for you to feel a massive shift in how you think about trauma, and how you are showing up in the world to be with other people in theirs. Make the first step towards changing birth outcomes. For birthing people, for the babies, and for yourself.
Australian College of Midwives CPD Recognised Activity (16 CPD hours upon completion of the full course)
- Midwife
- doula
- Obstetrician
- OBGYN
- nurse
- LD nurse
- NICU nurse
- General Practitioner
- Physician
- Paediatrician
- Maternal Child Nurse
- Anaesthetist
- Psychologist
- Counsellor/counselor
- Social worker
- childbirth educator
- lactation consultant
- Hypnobirthing teacher
- Chinese medicine practitioner
- Naturopath
- birth photographer
- Yoga teacher
- Acupuncturist
- Student (in relevant birth or health field)
Welcome home,
YOU are the one who your ancestors prayed for. By taking a step to educate yourself, back yourself and dive deep into the discomfort that is trauma you are changing birthing outcomes. For my babies. For their babies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving a rats.
Birth Trauma Training for Birth Workers is a course like no other. It’s a community of individuals answering a call. Choosing action instead of inaction and reaction. A call to be burn bright instead of burning out. As healers and helpers we were once burned. We were once called witches. ALL of us can go back to our lineage and find a trace of an ancestor who was once called a witch.
No more. We’ve had enough of birth outcomes being dishonoured by greed, fear, ego and a lack of trust and reverence for what birth once was. Will always be. It’s not about saying birth trauma will never happen, but it’s about saying we can do better.
We must do better. We are the professionals making a difference to families. We do that by stepping into our power and doing the personal and professional work to leave a better legacy.
We are perinatal professionals who are industry leaders. Game changers. Shit stirrers. Willing to stand up and say “No! That’s not ethical. It’s not legal. It’s not humane”.
We are bold and bright, and see balance and beauty in everything. Where there is shadow, there is also light. Where there is great hardship and pain there are also lessons, resilience and strength finding.
This is where you do the hard work, but you also go back to the joy. You lead by resting and have confidence to look in the mirror with little ones watching and say “this is what someone who takes excellent care of themselves looks like”. Because even if it feels unachievable now, you know that joy, passion and feeling good are your birth right. That success comes when you are truly happy, in flow, and your cup is so full that others are lucky just to be in the splash zone.
This is a community who will lift you up, support and honour you no matter where you are at in your journey.
No competition. No judgement. No ego measuring. No bullying.
Together we must stand equal. No matter what your training, professional credentials or experience. Every single one of us has trauma. Every single one of us has fears and diminishers and ways in which we feel small, not good enough and like impostors. The suicide stats for people in healthcare is shockingly high. So is the secrecy, the isolation and the feelings of overwhelm.
We must be authentic. We must value kindness and compassion.
Here's where to start:
1. Preparation and reflection.
Block out at least 2 hours or so per lesson, because you’ll have a video, self-reflection tasks, reading and assessments to do.
The act of scheduling the time in rather than just waiting until you have a chance cements your commitment.
It’s up to you how you want to break your study up. I wouldn’t be trying to power though it in a day or even a weekend, this is heavy content and while I’m doing my best to keep some of the light in you are going to need breaks – more so than you would for other courses.
You are also going to want to get a journal, or somewhere to make notes. I encourage you to leave comments with your learning and reflections, but you may also want to keep this private and that’s fine too.
2. Policies, agreements and assessments
I need you to fully understand the policies on mental health and use of skills in the course. It is imperative that you look after your own mental health and appreciate that this course is not therapy. It is also important that you understand that this course does not qualify you to provide mental health support to others.
With assessments, you are not required to hand anything in. Any assessments or quizzes I suggest you take are for your own learning. You’re not required to share results.
What I would like is to do though is collect data on my student’s pre-course level of confidence and skills and then compare this to the post-course answers. You won’t be identified in the data. I also ask for mid-course feedback, so I can track how students are finding the material and the interface and make improvements and adjustments where needed.
Where to find things:
Each section has resources with references, websites and so on that I’ll update from time to time.
Make sure you have asked to join the Facebook group if you’re on Facebook. This is where you will find me for Q&A and support. Make sure that if your name or email address is different to the one you registered with that you just email me and let me know.
Please make sure you reach out and connect to each other. A huge part of this course is connecting with people who are the change makers. People like you who really care about this work and are invested in changing birth outcomes. So please share and connect.
Remember to be respectful, be mindful of retraumatizing people. Think about defamation before you go naming names or screen shotting details if you’re got horror stories to share. And please, don’t go screen shotting or sharing ANY content in this course or in the group.
Questions? Email me or tag me in the Facebook group.
With the current COVID-19 crisis my work hours are super limited. I have two young kids, so I ask for your patience with communications.
I really am so glad that you are here!!!!
When you’re done, continue over to Lesson 1.
In this lesson you will:
Develop a learning plan that will ensure you are (1) scheduling your learning with regular breaks and time for self-care afterwards
Make the commitment to work on your own trauma
Make the commitment to catch yourself saying “I don’t have time for…” and swap it with “I don’t value…” and see how that feels
Gain an introduction to birth trauma
Understand the difference between trauma, traumatic stress and PTSD
Understand some of the predisposing factors for traumatic birth
Identify the ways in watch trauma develops by directly experiencing, witnessing or hearing about an event
Begin to understand how witnessing birth trauma impacts occupational stress and birth culture
Begin to see your personal and professional needs as connected to overall transformation.
Begin to connect principles from positive psychology, mindfulness and posttraumatic growth
See that transformation from trauma is fractured, but beautiful
Begin to check in with comes up for you with your own trauma responses
In this lesson:
Why is language important
The Improved NICE guidelines
Gender and identity inclusive language
Let’s assess and address your biases
Language and the subconscious, and how this relates to birth and trauma
The ‘failure’ narrative of birth
Using medical terms versus client’s terms
Special considerations when working with abuse survivors
And the language of leadership versus authority
Lesson 3 overview
What are the negative and positive consequences of trauma?
Macro self-care: What can you do to help in the first forty eight hours after birth for your client and yourself
How to help yourself and others with difficult emotions
Safety plans, self-care and support for birth workers
Debriefs and groups – the pros and cons
Working with partners
CBT and cognitive therapies
Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing
Hypnotherapy
The Rewind Technique
Somatic Experiencing
The Emotional freedom Technique – “Tapping”
And, Animal Assisted therapy
I also make mention of:
Chinese medicine
Holistic Pelvic Care
Closing the Bones
There's lots of further support materials for this lesson under the resources section
Also, my new course More Than a Healthy Baby: How to Cope with Birth Trauma is a great starting point. If you are looking for support for your own traumatic birth, or want a resource to share with clients the link is below. This course has 3 sections: (1) information and education about birth trauma, (2) direct skills training in some of the approaches I cover, and (3) how to find further support.
It's not a replacement for therapy, of course, but it's useful if:
1. You're working through your own birth trauma
2. You are wanting something to offer a client
2. You're a new psychologist/counsellor wondering how I teach certain techniques (showing is much easier than telling!)
3. I have a client who isn't sure if they want/need/are ready for therapy, or perhaps they live remotely and have limited finances
4. I'm looking to save time by teaching clients skills outside of sessions and cement their learning
Lesson 5 covers some of the technical aspects of memory as it relates to trauma. To counter some of the heavier material, there are no assessments or journal prompts in this lesson.
The neurobiology of trauma
A brief overview of the fight flight freeze appease response
How trauma affects the five senses
How trauma affects the memory systems
And how dissociation relates to trauma
Further resources on memory in the resources section.
This is where it all comes together!
What is posttraumatic growth versus resilience
Shifting from a personal failing mindset to a skill development mindset
The psychology of work and happiness
Why “I’ll be happy when I’m successful” is a massive myth
Individualised self-care at a micro level
What uncomfortable inner work do you need to do?
Who are you and where you need to show up?
Further research:
Research the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory
Find out your learning style
Do a Google search to see what your dominant learning style is. One of the most widely known is the VARK model, which includes the Visual, Auditory, Read/write and Kinaesthetic learning styles.