Episode 35 Midwives Rising #6: Researching Birth Trauma with Kristy Watson

Let’s talk about flashbacks. When I saw midwife Kristy Watson’s ad for birth trauma research popping up on my social media feed I instantly had a flashbulb memory of being 20 and knee deep in my honours year of research. Truthfully, my memories of my honours year was that it was one of the most difficult years of my life. I was ever aware that I probably didn’t really deserve to be there. My year was a bigger intake than normal. The anxiety levels and competitiveness were high. Online research was not really viewed favourably back then, so I really felt like I was scraping together whatever research participants I could find for my project on PTSD. I did a comparison of people who were injured during trauma versus people who were not injured and found that people who sustained a physical injury had more severe PTSD symptoms. Most of those research participants were my friends and that research never saw the light of day!

So, fast forward to seeing a mum who is trying to get participants in an area I’m super passionate about, and she’s a midwife who is juggling all of this with covid-19, home schooling and 3 kids. Of course I felt pulled to help her. And, after listening to Kristy’s passion, I’m sure that anyone who can help her will want to do what they can. Ultimately, research is what leads to policies. Policies is what leads to organizations being convinced to spend money and make changes. If you can help a sister out, this could actually lead to phenomenal changes in birth trauma research.

Participant criteria:

Live in Victoria and have had a vaginal birth that was traumatic between August 2018 -August 2020 (roughly)

You can get in touch with Kristy at: kbar0026@student.monash.edu

You can reach me @doctorerinbowe on instagram or dr.erinbowe@gmail.com

I support birthing people and birth workers in a range of ways. I do 1:1 work, supervision and mentoring, and I have a couple of online courses.

Birth trauma training for birth workers the online course now has over 500 enrolments. Most people who are new to Udemy have snapped it up for $14 or less. The price fluctuates according to sales the platform is running, but rest assured it will remain under $99 for the foreseeable future. https://www.udemy.com/course/birth-trauma-training-for-birth-workers/?referralCode=ABA1D879884EBBF44BA4

My other course, More Than a Healthy Baby: How to Cope With Birth Trauma is perfect for parents and birth workers who are navigating their own trauma. It’s an a la carte menu of some of my best tools and strategies. It’s not a replacement for therapy but it’s a starting point. Again, it’s under $100 (usually way less).

https://www.udemy.com/course/more-than-a-healthy-baby-how-to-cope-with-birth-trauma/?referralCode=092FFCAF4E5C01984978

Udemy also supports affiliates. This means that if you qualify, you can use a unique code for either of my courses to add to your website, socials or to give clients and you will receive a percentage of the course fee. It’s free to register, it’s just a bit of work to get yourself signed up https://www.udemy.com/affiliate/