25: Understanding Birth Trauma with Krysta Dancy, MA, MFT
Posted: September 11, 2020
My guest this week features Krysta Dancy, MA, MFT. Krysta is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Roseville, California where she has been working with clients since 2005. In addition to her private practice, she is the Co-Director and Supervisor of a local counseling nonprofit (The Place Within) where she supervises interns on their path to licensure. The Place Within offers counseling on a sliding fee scale to those who might otherwise be unable to access counseling. She also has a blog and speaks for local groups on some of her favorite psychological topics. She also functions as a spokesperson for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) where she has been a member (and previous board member) since 2005.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- How having her own children opened her up to birth fertility issues
- How there is a “Pinterest” version of motherhood that buries the real issues
- Dealing with shame and not compounding it with trauma
- The long-term effects of trauma
- The formative effects of transitioning from a woman to a mother
- How the pathway into motherhood becomes a narrative we remember very clearly
- The definition of trauma and birth trauma
- The effects of PTSD on a mother through childbirth
- Predictors of birth trauma symptoms; the level of obstetric intervention & the perception of their care
- How isolation can exacerbate birth trauma
- The physical effects of childbirth and its relation to birth trauma
- The birth plan and the effects it has when things don’t go to plan
- Resuming sexual contact after the effects of childbirth
- Myths and misconceptions around the issue of birth trauma