“I have tried to channel
my experience and feelings into helping others”
Welcome, I’m Emma Jane. I had my first daughter when I was only 22, and both I and my baby nearly died from a very traumatic birth. I was induced six weeks early due to pre-eclampsia, I then suffered a retained placenta which required life-saving surgery. I had a massive postpartum haemorrhage and third-degree tear. My daughter was taken straight to the neonatal unit while I spent 3 days in HDU.
My birth experience resulted in PTSD. Unfortunately, I was wrongly diagnosed for years. I struggled to assess help, support and treatment for a long time. Eventually, I found the help and support I needed and am now in recovery. I found while I desperately searched for answers there was little information on Birth Trauma and Perinatal PTSD and finding the right treatment was even harder. My experience and struggle to assess help have driven me to try and help others and educate health professionals on the impact of trauma in birth on perinatal mental health and how we can all work together to improve support for families affected.
In the depth of my darkness, when my recovery was just beginning, a dear friend sent me a card in which they had written the saying, ‘Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a beautiful butterfly’. They encouraged me to keep emerging from the darkness that had engulfed me and to continue to ‘unfold my wings’, to find who I was again, to find the light and to never let go of my hope and dreams. Those words gave me hope and helped me believe that I could overcome birth trauma and PTSD, that what had happened to me didn’t define me but that I could recover and then help others.
As began to heal I founded Unfold Your Wings.
My wish with this website is to provide information, to raise awareness and to also give hope. I felt alone for many years lost in the dark cocoon of Birth Trauma and PTSD, but I found the way to break free and find the light again.
If you would like to read more about my story HERE. You can also read about how I recovered from birth trauma in my book Beyond Birth Trauma.
I have been involved in many campaigns and projects to improve maternity experiences. I have completed training in mindfulness, CBT, perinatal mental health and trauma. I am privileged to work for the NHS caring for families who have had complex maternity journeys including birth trauma and baby-loss in acute and community services. I am a Solihull approach practitioner, including trauma, and have training in mental health first aid. I support the development of PNMH services/pathways and training to show the impact of birth trauma and use public speaking to help raise awareness. I am trying to use my experience to make a difference, by initiating change in services and policy both locally and nationally.
I believe that every woman during birth deserves to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. Birth trauma and PTSD are real, it is important that women and their families get the help and support they need to heal.
The birth of her baby can affect a woman for the rest of her life, it may not be possible to completely prevent birth trauma but what we can do is support women when things do go wrong and make sure that we show them love, compassion, kindness and help, even at the darkest times, so they believe that they will recover and leave the dark cocoon like a beautiful butterfly to see the light again.
Thank You
Emma Jane x
You can follow me on twitter at @unfoldURwings and on facebook at Unfold your wings.