Why you froze in the birth room

If you froze, went quiet or agreed to things during birth that you didn’t really want, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I talk about freeze and fawn trauma responses during birth and why so many women struggle to advocate for themselves during labour, interventions or a traumatic C-section.

You’ll learn why your nervous system may have gone into survival mode, why it wasn’t your fault and how reconnecting with your body can help you begin to feel safe again.

Join the waitlist for the Reconnection Body Oil & Ritual below.

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Disclaimer 

This is not a substitute for medical advice. 

#Csectionrecovery #birth trauma #freezeresponse #fawnresponse #nervoussystemhealing #traumaticbirth #postpartumhealing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today I'm talking to the woman who feels like she should have done more in the birthroom. Whether you should have advocated for yourself more or you feel like you should have stopped the C-section. Maybe you feel like you shouldn't have had the interventions like the sweep or the drip. If you feel like you should have done more in the room, I want to introduce you to trauma responses. Fight, flight, freeze and fawn. You may have heard of these before, but specifically, I want to talk about freeze and fawn. And welcome to the C-section healing space. I'm Davina, probably should have said that at the beginning. Trauma responses are how you react to situations that feel dangerous to you. Your body receives the signal that it's dangerous and it chooses fight, flight, freeze, or fall. And you cannot choose your response. It's an automatic response that your body gives. And this response has been coded into your body and your nervous system since the first time you felt and experienced a dangerous situation. So for me, that was in childhood, and I froze like right there and then at five years old, and then my body locked in that response. So it knew whenever fear arrives, we freeze. That's what the body locked in. So done. Obviously, this is all happening, maybe not obviously, uh, this is all happening subconsciously, so it's not something that you're choosing, you're only five years old, but this is just something that the body locks in for you, all subconscious, so you don't even know that it's happened. And then as I grew up in my later years, like teenage years, another thing happened, and we learned that to keep ourselves safe, what we do is you agree with the aggressor, so that's called fawn. So fawn is agreeing with what is happening, being compliant with what is happening to keep your body safe. So my body said, if freezing isn't available to me in a situation, we can stay safe by agreeing to whatever is happening because all your body wants to do is stay alive, because literally feels like what is happening is life and death, and so my body locked in okay, if we can't freeze, we will fall, so we will just agree with what is happening, and that is what is going to keep us safe. And this doesn't happen in only life and death situations. Our bodies are wired for lions and tigers coming after us, and because we don't live in a space where that happens to us anymore, our life and death situations could be asking for a raise. You might feel your heart start pumping really fast, you might feel anxiety, stress, and worry just to ask for a raise which you most likely deserve. It can feel like life and death to your body. Saying no. Actually, no, I don't fancy going out tonight, maybe. That might feel like life and death to your body. You might be like, oh, I can't say no because what might they think? And the brain starts creating these stories, you start feeling anxious, your heart starts pumping, all just because of saying no. That can feel like life and death to the body. It could be changing your hair colour, it could be wearing bright clothes, putting your hand up to answer or ask a question. It could be saying yes to an opportunity that you really want, but you feel like you can't. And your body interprets all of these everyday life situations as life and death situations, it's coming from that experience that you had many years ago, and it's like, oh, it's that feeling again. So let's freeze or form. So when a doctor or a consultant says we need to do a sweep, and your body tenses, and you know that you don't want one, or that you don't need one, or you'd like to ask more questions about it, but the tone that the doctor asked it in, the authoritative nature in the way that they asked it, your beliefs of who knows best in this situation, the concerns that you might have for your baby or yourself, that all comes into play when you give your answer. So I just want you to know it's not just I should have asked more questions, or I feel like I should have done this, or I should have done that. There is so much more at play than you being in the birthroom with that doctor or consultant. There is so much more happening in that moment. Your body is drawing upon experiences from many years ago. And when that doctor asks, We need a sweep, or we want to give you a vaginal exam, or we think you're gonna have a C-section, or you need to have the drip, or you need to have an epidural, or whatever it is that makes you think, makes you kind of question, like, oh, I'm not sure, but you're not able to advocate for the answer that you actually want to give, and you freeze, or you fawn, and you agree.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Just know that that isn't a personality flaw of yours, it's your body responding from previous experience. Your answer isn't based on what is happening in that moment only, it comes from a whole set of experiences and beliefs that were set years ago. That's who's answering the question.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

So please don't beat yourself up for how you responded in the birthroom. You did the best you could with the information that you had at the time.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

And we haven't even spoken about all of the other factors that are at play when you're asked a question while in labor.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

What support did you or did you not have? Whether that's partner or family or support from your medical team. Did you feel safe while you were in labor? I mean, that's really a huge one. I could actually do a whole podcast episode on the feeling safe part. I may do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

The environment, the people, the temperature. Were you warm, were you cold? Did you feel listened to? What was your intuition saying at the time? There is so much more at play. With my first birth, they said that I needed to have an epidural.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

And I mean, I feel like I just didn't really needn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what I was doing with birth. I really didn't. I thought birth was like the movies, so I just thought that my walls would break at home, I'd go into the hospital, I'd push my baby out, and then I would come home and that's it. Like I just I hadn't thought about anything to do with labor itself. I just hadn't thought about anything like that. And so I said I needed an epidroll, and the anesthetist came into the room, and I don't know what it was. I don't know what it was, but my body was just saying no, like and not even no to the epidural, but no to her. Like I just did not want her to do it. I just I and there was no reason for that. She came in, she was very, she seemed very nice, she was smiley, but there was just something in me saying, I just don't want her to do it, I don't want her to do it, I really just did not want her to do it. I couldn't verbalize any of this, I didn't verbalize any of it. It was just this internal feeling of I do not want her to do it. And then um she got a paid beep, and she was like, Oh, you know, there's emergency, she has to go. And then so you know, she left and she said she'd come back, but she'd left. And then I just remember the oh the relief in my body, and I was like, oh my god, she's gone. And then I was just like thinking to my body, like, please, baby, just come, just come because I don't want her to do it. And then after a certain amount of time had gone by, she'd come back in and be like, right, okay, we're ready. And then I just remember tense, the body just tensed up again, and I was like, Oh god, I don't want her to do it, don't want her to do it. And then she got another beep, and she's like, Oh my gosh, like there's there's another emergency, I've got to go, I'm so sorry. And and she went, and then when she went, I was like, Oh, and I could just feel this relief, and it was it was physical, it was an actual physical tightening when she was around and a relief when she was gone, and then I was just like, please let this baby come. And then she came again. I was like, I'm ready, and I tensed up again, and I was like, Oh god, I don't want her to do it, I don't want her to do it, and she did it, and it was uh the worst pain I've ever experienced in my entire life. I thought that I was gonna die. Only in hindsight now do I know that she'd hit a nerve, and that's why I felt that way, and she had to remove the epidural, and then as soon as she did, like the feeling came went away. That horrible, painful feeling went away, and then uh I came back, I came back to myself. I feel like that was my body, that was my intuition, letting me know that those times when I felt like I didn't want her to do it without having any real reason as to why that was, but that was my intuition speaking to me. But due to my previous experiences when I was younger of freezing and fawning, not wanting to be a problem to anyone, I was very much a people pleaser, you know. I just don't want to be an issue to anyone, so we just go ahead, yeah. We just go ahead and do it, we just do whatever. It's that's called fawning. If that type of experience or that resonates with you, or you you feel like that kind of thing happened to you, know that it's not a weakness of you, it's not something wrong with you or your personality, or why didn't they do that? Your body is responding from experiences that you had before. That freeze or that form response is something that you learnt years ago and it plays out in all parts of your life, especially in the birthroom. Another part that also plays out in the birthroom is that most women don't even know their rights in birth. It's not freely told to you, unfortunately. You're making decisions without knowing what all of the possibilities are, and they're not shared with you. Um, a lot of women don't even realize that you can say no to things in the birthroom that you don't have to have vaginal exams if you don't want to, you don't have to have sweeps if you don't want to. Like a lot of women don't even know their rights because the medical staff don't share them with you. Just a little something if you're maybe pregnant now or thinking about being pregnant again. Something that you can use in those experiences, and actually, I say in the birthroom, is this was made for the birthroom, but actually, you could use just this in life, to be honest. Anytime you're asked to do something or a question that maybe you're just not sure of, you can use the BRAIN acronym if you've heard of BRAIN. So B stands for benefits. What are the benefits to whatever it is that they're asking you to do? What are the risks are, what are the risks of what they're asking you to do? A is alternatives. Are there any alternatives to this? Like, is this the only way or is there another way? I is your intuition. What is your intuition telling you? And N is nothing. What happens if we do nothing? If you get to ask that question, and it'll just give you a bit more of an idea of your options because your options won't always just be given to you. Very rarely are they given to you. So this should just a little something that you can run through in your head or you can ask so that you can be like, hmm, is this something that I that I want? I wish I'd known about brain during my birth, my first birth, because I didn't know. Because when they asked, well, when they said to me, Oh, we're going to put you on a drip to help your contraction. So when it's put to you like that, I'm just like, okay, yeah, okay. Like I didn't know what a drip was, and so they didn't use the word induction because that's actually what it was, but I didn't know it was an induction. They just said, We're gonna you know give you this drip to help your contractions along. So that's that sounds that sounds good, right? That sounds good, so I was like, okay, but as a doula now, and just for those who don't know what a doula is, because I I say doula, and then I when sometimes I'll meet people and they'll be like, What's that? and I always think, Oh, yeah, there are some people who don't know what a doula is, but a doula is someone who supports a mom, partner, family to birth the way that they want to birth. So I'm like an advocate for women in for them to birth the way they want to, to like have another voice in the room, someone who's just for you. And we help you as well do antenatal classes and we do postnatal classes, and then therefore the labor as well. But yeah, as a doula, which I became after my three children, understanding that a drip isn't just a it just isn't just helping your contractions, it's not that at all, it is forcing your contractions, slamming your baby's head against your cervix, trying to force your cervix to open, and understanding now your cervix opens when you're ready, and it shouldn't be forced to be opened. Also, that the stats show that having a drip, having an induction increases your chances of having a c-section because baby gets distressed, you get distressed, and then you end up having a c-section. So I wish someone had said that to me before having a drip. So, again, if that resonates with you, know that you know it's not your fault, there's nothing wrong with you, it's not personality flaw, it's not that you should have done this or should have done that. Your rights, your options were not shared with you. And so you made the best decisions that you could at the time with the information that you had. You didn't do anything wrong. If you froze, if you fawned, it's a trauma response, it's a survival response. Your body only wants to survive. We're in such a vulnerable position when we're pregnant and in labor. You only want what's good for you and your baby, so which is why fawn is very common in the labor experience. And what you can do now is to tell your body that you're safe. Because once your body has been through this type of experience, it stays in high alert. And again, this is all subconscious, you don't know that this is happening, you don't know that this is what's going on, it stays there unknowingly to you because it doesn't know that it's safe, so it just stays in this high alert space, and so you need to reconnect with your body and let it know that it's safe to come out of that high alert space, and you can this just can do this in five minutes, like a continual five minutes, like each each day. So reconnect with your body, take five minutes. You can lie down, you can put your hand on your heart, one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, and just breathe.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Don't underestimate what a reconnection ritual can do for your mind, body, your heart, and your soul.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

In a world that says calm down and carry on, or just hustle, just do do do, go, go, go, and get through it. I say no.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I say, let me pause, let me feel, let me integrate my experience so that I can live my life from a place of being and not performance.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

No more pretending to be okay, no more shoving down the feelings, no more pushing through, no more just getting on with it.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Actually feeling and moving through, caring for my mind and body five minutes at a time.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And I created the most beautiful reconnection body oil and ritual for you. It launches very, very soon. I'm really excited about it. You can find it at the link in the description. You can uh join the waiting list so you can be one of the firsts to to get it when it's available.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

But this is your first step to beginning to feel safe within your body again.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

If finding yourself again through softness and not struggle sounds good to you, then it's absolutely for you.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Until next time.