Other Intrauterine And Birthing Trauma - Frank Lake Md

[shimmerz]

This is what I consider to be a very detailed article on what can 'go wrong' and how it can affect us while in utero and during birthing. It explains how these things can come back to bite us along the way.

There are also quite a few links to documentation that speaks to fetal stressors. I hope someone can find some use from it.

http://primal-page.com/lakefr.htm

 

[Chava]

Wow! Interesting stuff! I was a very unhappy fetus (weird to find out so many years later I also have a couple different congenital defects, though mild) and the response to how difficult it was for me and my mom was horrid. It isn't even listed here. Aside from being murdered, worst possible birth scenario I can think of. I don't want to even say because it's a weird specific story that I fear will out me if somebody is reading online (paranoid much? only with these details). But it was a no-win situation. I wasn't safe inside my mother and I wasn't safe when I was born. It's weird I didn't die.

 

[sun seeker]

I don't want to even say because it's a weird specific story that I fear will out me if somebody is reading online

Frustrating, isn't it? I have a few of those, though with a thread I posted recently I think I've already done that if anyone who knows me puts two and two together. Have you considered posting in the anonymous forum?

 

[Chava]

@sun seeker yes, I have posted anonymously a couple times but more about a different trauma I really had to get out there somehow. This one I don't feel a loss for not talking about it. There is no shame or nothing holding me back but maintaining some general anonymity if someone in my real world ever comes across these posts. But I do think I've also posted more details than I wanted to a couple times after having taken my sleeping pills. so, ehh.. :O_o:

 

[sun seeker]

Thanks @shimmerz, that was a very interesting article. The part I got the most out of was right at the beginning in the definition of the paradoxical reaction. I still have that reaction to certain kinds of stress, even when seemingly subtle. From hope to a desire to die - it can turn on a dime. Interesting. The theory that the basis for the concept of hell originates in the unborn baby's perception of suffering that goes on forever also gave me pause. That's sort of like what the state I've describe as "survival fear" feels like. Not a rational fear of death, more a fear of suffering that goes on forever and from which there is no escape.

 

[shimmerz]

I have learned that much of my trauma is built on conflict. Do I live or do I die? I need to escape, I can't escape. I have a value, I can't live up to that value for xyz reason. I found this article years ago and I felt it applied to my birth trauma but it was back in the day when I wasn't quite sure how I felt about pre-birth trauma. I hope it helps someone out there. :hug:

 

[Born to Run]

Thank you for this interesting article. I can relate to the fourth scenario mentioned of being marinated in mother's miseries. In therapy I could fortunately process the effects my mother had on me prenatally. I was unwanted and there were attempts of abortion, which in plain terms is they wanted to kill me, they being my parents. My father constantly verbally abused my mother, and I have felt her constant panic and that I could not get out of the darkness, I wanted to get away from her, it was not safe in there. I have felt the moment of the c.section, that I was stuck in there and I was so relieved to see the light and get out of there. My mother only wanted to die, when waiting for the c.section. I found out that the breech position that led to the c.section also is not random. The fetus that feels it is very unsafe, will to protect itself intrauterine go into breech to mainly protect its head. I am not able to post links, so I can not add the link where I found this info. Then you realize that even before birth everything has only been about survival. To process the breech position and danger in there, I have spent several weeks sleeping in the breech position and having severe pains and cramps in my legs. Without somatic experiencing I think I could never ever have processed this.

 

[shimmerz]

To process the breech position and danger in there, I have spent several weeks sleeping in the breech position and having severe pains and cramps in my legs. Without somatic experiencing I think I could never ever have processed this.

This is super interesting to me. How did you realize that sleeping in breech would help you? Was that from reading or did you have a T or somatic therapist that led you to this?

 

[Born to Run]

I see how I wrote it that it is not clear what came first. Sorry. No it was the other way around actually. My body just started with this positioning during the night, and with my T we tried to figure out what I was doing. At a certain point he said, but what you describe is not what a baby does when lying, as we thought it was a baby position. Great point. Then I woke up one morning and thought it has to be about the breech position. It was my own research on the web that led to the information. It is funny that I used to joke long ago, before I had been diagnosed with ptsd, that I had turned around as I knew that it would be so bad out there, I would rather not see it. This association helped in finding the answer, as subconsciously I must have known.

 

[Chava]

I've re-read parts of this a few times because it's interesting and a lot to sort of digest in my brain. I do know for certain that my mom was a huge stress ball during her pregnancy. My parents, who have almost no memory of major incidents, have told me this so it was pretty real stress (she also wasn't taking good care of herself). I couldn't be healthy in there, but I was forced out in a pretty terrible way, not prepared to be born either. No-win. So I spent a month or so in the incubator, turning purple on and off because they couldn't get oxygen levels right.

I wouldn't be able to tell you how my body memories connect to any of this. But when I feel stressed, I hide out in my bathroom with an extra heater and warm lights. It's the smallest and most interior room of my house. I can't tolerate contact even from my pets, so I shut them out. It sounds nuts, but I will eat dinner in the bathroom quite often. What I would really love is a little nicely lit sauna. Problem is I'd probably never leave.

I went home to a depressed and possibly re-traumatized mom. She became increasingly angry over the years. I don't have clear memories from the first few years. But in the few photos of us together I just look scared and like I'm looking for an escape. When I ended up hospitalized a few years later, she was like a stranger to me. I could have been taken home by one of the nurses aides and not known the difference. They all seemed unreal but I was drawn towards anyone who was nice to me. There was one staff who helped me find fun ways to stay occupied (I was alone a lot because hospital was far from home and there were other kids to take care of at home). There was a weird sense that she was my new mom. Anyway, that experience was just like a birth re-trauma because it involved many of the same organ failures, machines taking care of me, and isolation.

 

[shimmerz]

because it involved many of the same organ failures, machines taking care of me, and isolation.

This is super interesting to me. My pancreatitis is actually the same physical issue I had at 8 months old. I feel like it is a replay of that event. I don't have a sense of how this works, but it came to me over and over again while I was in the hospital that it was an almost exact replica of what I had read in my papers supplied to me by the Children's Aid.

 

[Chava]

I think if there's a sense of sense of deja vu, plus the medical history, plus increased emotional response or intolerance, there's a likely connection there. I know my back pain connects to my lack of core and even unwillingness to support myself from within my own body at times. But the popping of little bits of acid (or whatever myofascial stuff) reminds me of air seeping into my back and forming little bubbles. I don't "remember" that, but this reminds me of that, as if I do remember it (somatic deja vu). And I'm totally intolerant. You could break my leg and it wouldn't bug me more than having a broken leg...probably less than most people, like I'd be laughing. But I'm really intolerant towards thoracic back pain. And yet I'm intolerant towards no pain at all. I need just the right amount...body/pain control that reminds me of an eating disorder actually. Super screwed up. But always trying to manage the right level of semi-suffering-okayness...