If you’ve had a long, arduous birth or one that resulted in an emergency intervention, it can be hard to understand why a fast vaginal delivery wouldn’t be ideal.

Who wouldn’t want to be one of those women who pop out a baby in the morning and are sent home from hospital four hours later with their baby? Doesn’t it sound like birth must be better if it lasts less than two hours?

For some women, perhaps. But for others, a fast birth can be overwhelming or even traumatic. Quick is not always easy – and here are the main reasons why.

A fast birth is physically intense.

If you think about it, this is obvious! A woman’s body is going through huge physiological changes during the process of birth and if your birth progressed quickly, all those changes are happening in a short space of time.

Your mind doesn’t have time to catch up.

When birth goes from 0-100 and progresses at lightening speed, it’s almost impossible for your mind to process what is happening. You literally don’t get time or opportunity to catch up with what your body is doing, orient to the progression of your labour, or make sense of what is happening. This means a fast birth can be experienced as quite out-of-control and overwhelming.

Pain is often less well managed due to the speed at which things intensify.

If your birth progressed quickly, you might have had a sense of playing catch-up with your pain relief options. You likely lost the opportunity to use some altogether. Perhaps by the time you got the tens-machine set up, your surges were at a higher level and you didn’t feel any real benefit. Or maybe you made it to hospital too late for that epidural you had planned for. Unmanaged pain can be a significant factor in experiencing your birth as traumatic.

Partners and care staff may not have recognised how far along you were

With a fast birth, some women find that they are simply not believed when they try to express how intense their labour feels. If you are dismissed in this way, or told contradictory information, it can be extremely confusing and frightening. I’ve had so many women tell me how they doubted their own capacity to give birth when they were told that what they were experiencing was just the beginning.

You may not have made it to the hospital

If your labour progressed so quickly that you had to give birth in a place that you didn’t choose (such as in public, in a car or an ambulance) this may have been quite frightening for you. In such a situation, it is difficult to feel safe, secure and in control, which can contribute to your birth being experienced as traumatic.

All of a sudden you were handed a baby.

What a shock that can be! Even though you have had nine months to prepare to meet them, with a fast birth your mind can be totally overwhelmed by this moment. You simply may not have been able to process how you got from pregnant to mother in such a short time. Some find that this experience can make it feel difficult to settle into that relationship with their baby.

So, what can you do if you’re feeling shaken after a fast birth?

Know your feelings are valid

You are allowed to feel shocked, upset or traumatised by your birth, even if no emergency intervention was required. A traumatic birth is actually determined by how you experienced the birth and vaginal, ‘medically straightforward’ births can be traumatic too. Grab a copy of our Guide to Birth Trauma to learn more about what defines a traumatic birth and some of the factors that contribute.

Emotionally process your birth experience.

When a life event is frightening or overwhelming, our brains cannot process it right away. The memory can be stored initially in fragment, meaning that it feels raw and vivid when you remember it, and the emotions remain intense. Some women find it extremely hard to think or talk about their birth, which can mean the experience doesn’t get processed and the memory remains in this raw state. For some, this can contribute to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

If you can, try to allow yourself to think about your experience. Talk it through with others who were present, or tell your birth story to a friend. Its so important to gather up the pieces of your experience and put them back together into an organised narrative. Our Birth Healing Program is built on this precise principle! I teach mothers how to effectively emotionally process their experience by revisiting it in a way that helps place the memories in the past.

Be gentle with yourself

Try to hold any struggles that followed your fast birth with compassion. It isn’t easy to figure out what it means to be a mother, to have so many aspects of your life and identity change overnight, and all the responsibilities of a newborn to navigate. When you have to deal with the emotional distress of a difficult birth experience on top, it’s normal to find the transition to parenthood challenging.

Let yourself be new at this – there’s no such thing as a perfect mother, and no right way to do things. Over time, you will find your feet and begin to feel more confident in this new role. Until then, let your baby be the guide. Allow yourself time to get to know them and they’ll help you figure out what they need.

Interested in more information on psychological recovery after a difficult birth?

Join our mailing list to get the Birth Healing Collective in your inbox, with invites to relevant workshops and early bird access to our online programs.