Childbirth and its implication at the psychological level.

Childbirth as such is an organic and psychological event that involves a series of profound changes, sometimes difficult to navigate. Pregnant people organically have 9 months of gestation before giving birth. Time in which the psychological preparation for that moment is supposed to be generated.

However, many factors come into play from the start. The desire or not desire, the situation of the conception, in what psychological conditions is the person, the environment, the socio-economic situation, etc. All this affects and significantly affects the process.

The word parturition comes from the Latin partus-us, which comes from parĕre, which means to give birth, engender, produce. The psychological process that is put into play in this «engendering» is extremely complex, a crisis is generated, in the sense of an abrupt change in reality as it was conceived until now.

The body transforms and literally opens, to make way for another being. This event is critical in the sense of the resounding change it represents. Symbolically giving birth represents a kind of personal death, in pursuit of the emergence of that new life. For this reason, those who give birth can experience depression, because there is something very deep that is transformed in the psyche in the face of such an event.

Many psychiatric pathologies can be triggered at this time, precisely because of the psychological imbalance that childbirth implies. If there is no desire or decision to have a son or daughter, the effects of childbirth are traumatic, and it is very difficult for the person to cope with the process both before giving birth and after.

A birth implies change and psychic transformation. What happens organically in gestation and bodily changes may, however, not be accompanied from the psychological point of view. Thus we see pregnant people who may be unaware of their ongoing pregnancy, for example.

Desire and choice play a fundamental role in this context. Pregnant people put the body and also put their health and their psyche at stake. Giving birth implies a rupture, something dies and something new comes. And this fact has to have someone who chooses it and who is in a position to transit it.

Childbirth is an extremely intense life experience, with strong emotionality. For this reason, in many cases the psychological support before and after is very important to allow all the movements that occur to be worked on with adequate support.

Perinatal psychology deals specifically with this task, in cases where the search for pregnancy is chosen and/or it is decided to continue.

Even if motherhood is desired and/or planned, it always implies a vital crisis, with hormonal, physical, and psychosocial changes that must be taken into account.

The respected delivery aims to defend the integrity of the pregnant person, prioritizing their decisions and avoiding violent intervention as currently happens with conventional deliveries in health institutions.

It is extremely important to offer a space of containment and protection in this intense moment for the person who is going through it and to reduce as much as possible the institutional violence that is often added to the vital crisis that it already implies.

 

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