Over 450 Northern Rivers locals are coming together next week to support the conversation and raise awareness around perinatal trauma, with a free event at Lennox Head Cultural Centre on Tuesday 18 July at 10am.
During Birth Trauma Awareness week (running 16-22 July) national charity Hygieia Health Ltd has partnered with the local Lismore hospital team and birth community experts from all over Australia to create a community event designed to raise awareness about birth trauma, and importantly, discuss ways to prevent it.
Birth trauma is gaining a lot of focus at the moment with the NSW state-wide enquiry being established on 21 June 2023 (chaired by the Hon. Emma Hurst). Registrations to this event filled in record time, attesting to the seriousness of the issue, enabling those involved to strive for better care, better practices and better birth experiences for all birthing women.
The three hour live event at Lennox Head Cultural Centre on Tuesday has been pulled together in collaboration with Dr Tane Luna, Head of Obstetrics at Lismore Base Hospital, who is dedicated to supporting staff and birthing families to have positive birth experiences.
Incredible opportunity
The event will be focused on compassion, self-awareness, prevention and treatment of birth-related and perinatal trauma. This is a great opportunity for the community to gather together to share their stories, support birthing families who have experienced perinatal trauma, and raise awareness about the issues and the effect birth trauma has on mothers, babies and the wider community.
Participants will look at what needs to be done in the Northern NSW Health District, and beyond, to prevent birth-related trauma.
This is an opportunity for maternity consumers to have a voice and ask for change. It’s also a great opportunity for learning. Many of those who will be in attendance are birth workers (midwives, doulas, obstetricians etc) who are committed to providing trauma-informed care, listening to the community and supporting a grassroots effort to improve services in the district.
Dr Luna has also scheduled two 1-day trauma-informed training days for midwifery and obstetric staff across the entire local health district. This training will be dedicated to raising awareness, practicing trauma-informed care, understanding and recognising triggers and looking at how staff can get support for themselves in difficult circumstances.
Preventing trauma
Hygieia Health co-founder Jane Hardwicke Collings said, ‘Trauma that happens during pregnancy, childbirth and newborn-mothering can have long-lasting effects on the mother, and critically the baby, including their ability to bond long-term.
‘While we can’t ever fully stop trauma from happening in birth, we do know that around 70 per cent of it is caused by what the midwives and doctors do and say and that is preventable, so this is what we are here to talk about – how to stop it from happening, and how to help heal it if it does happen.
‘We need to work together as a community – within the system, and without – to support better birthing experiences for all,’ she said.
Speakers at the Lennox Head event will include: Dr Tane Luna (Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Lismore Hospital), Rhea Dempsey (Doula and Birth Educator), Jerusha Suttun (Doula & Photographer), Laura Latina (Birth Consultant & Compassionate Inquiry), Jane Hardwicke Collings (Founder, School of Shamanic Womancraft & Hygieia Health), Dr Oscar Serrallach (Functional Medicine), and Naomi Jansson, (Chinese Medicine, Doula, Nurse).
The Birth Trauma Awareness Event will be happening at the Lennox Head Cultural Centre from 10am-1pm on Tuesday 18 July.
You can find out more and book here (entry is free, but the event is ticketed).
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
