The last way any new mum expects to spend their first night after giving birth is childless in the maternity ward, listening to other mothers comfort their crying babies. For Danielle Holmes, this lonely experience was worsened by the whirlwind of activity surrounding what she had thought was a “super normal” birth - up until her daughter was born with a brain injury and had to be resuscitated for half an hour. The messy and frightening way Willow entered the world, which has left her with a lifelong disability, has also left her mother traumatised.
But it is only now, more than three years later, that Holmes is receiving proper care for the birth trauma she suffers. Holmes is just one of an estimated 50 New Zealand women per day who suffer psychological birth trauma - a statistic labelled “shocking” by a charitable trust set up to support people who have come away from birth with either physical or psychological injuries..
