Cecilia's story

When I met Cecilia for this session, she was in her second pregnancy and quite close to her due date.

She experienced postnatal depression after the birth of her first child and was quite anxious about the upcoming birth.

She told me how exhausting her first birth had been, how stressed she had been. The birth team had put an ultimatum on her at some stage, to birth naturally until a certain time or otherwise it would be a C-section birth.

Cecilia worked really hard and birthed her baby on the dot naturally. The baby had been under stress as well and had inhaled meconium. As a precaution the baby was put on antibiotics and transferred to NICU (neonatal intensive care unit).

After the delivery Cecilia felt utterly lonely, all staff had left the room, her partner went with the baby, and she was told to have breakfast. She so much had looked forward to holding her baby and now she was holding nothing.
 

Over the next four days Cecilia visited NICU to breastfeed her child, the rest of the care was done by the nurses.
On day 5 her baby came back and all of a sudden, she had to take care of a child she felt disconnected from, she felt very unprepared and out of her depth. It had been a rough start for the two of them.
 

All this can be enough to encode as a trauma in the brain. We as mothers are hard wired to care for the baby we just have born. The survival of our family hinges on the survival of our babies, the next generation.
 

In our session we worked on the memory feeling utterly lonely after the birth, as well as Cecilia’s nervousness and anxiety of the up-coming birth. She was really hoping for a stress free waterbirth. We worked with a technique called Havening or Delta Wave Techniques®. It uses simple self-applied or facilitated touch to hands, arms, and face. It helps the brain to process memories in a non-threatening way. It’s as if, through gentle touch, the brain is reminded that it is safe to release the emotional charge tied to traumatic events.
 

Working with delta waves means you are very relaxed, and Cecilia waved me good bye with a big smile on her face leaving all these negative experiences behind, being curious about the birth to come.

This had been our third session, for the other two sessions, even though we had planned to work on her first birth, other more urgent matters had presented themselves and we solved these first. Within the space of three sessions Cecilia was able to change significant life experiences.
 

Five days after our last session I got a delightful text, saying her baby had been born. Cecilia was very happy as all went peacefully and well. She voiced her wish in hospital and birthed in water.
 

For her third pregnancy Cecilia used self-Havening a lot, to staying calm in her nervous system and as a preparation for the birth. She felt really good with it.

The third birth went well too, even though it was a very big baby.