This is all the reason we need to give women both the permission and the resources required to attend to their bodies, their minds, and their hearts in order to recover from difficult births. “Permission” means allowing women to be distressed about their distressing birth experiences. It means we stop telling ourselves and one another that the outcome—a healthy baby—somehow negates or justifies the scary, disempowering, or otherwise upsetting birth experience that culminated in that healthy baby.
