bedroom just after you and the baby have got off to sleep!

Re-living the Birth and Healing
   From the first hour after the birth, and well into the first few weeks, most women find themselves mentally and verbally re-living their birthing experience. It is recounted repeatedly to well-wishers who ask - "How did it go?", and you'll find from time to time it plays back in your mind like a recently watched movie!
   All this is just the mind coming to terms with such a powerful experience. Eventually the event will just become an integrated part of your memory and life experience, but up until that point it must be dealt with honestly. You must also be careful not to suppress any dissatisfaction, or to put a false spin on it - to rewrite history as it were - for your own or another's benefit.
   Whether it be a positive or a negative mem-ory, the attitude you have in retrospect to the birth is very important so that for any future births there are no dormant, unresolved issues. If, in your assessment, the birth went flawlessly and it holds only happy memories (outside of but including the usual passing pains!), then you won't have any problems approaching another pregnancy or labour. However, if there were problems, complications or disasters, such issues must be acknowledged and resolved sooner rather than later. The impressions of childbirth (both good and bad) penetrate deep into a woman's psyche and biology. Many a woman has been surprised at how past traumas, thought to have previously been resolved, have surfaced soon after becoming pregnant again.
   If you were not completely happy with the events of the birth, please do not allow yourself to be distracted (either by yourself or others) from dealing with those issues. Well meaning friends or professionals telling you - "It doesn't matter now because you have a lovely new baby", or - "It'll be different next time", do you and your babies no favours. If you are not happy with the way things went then you must assess and resolve things until you are. Only then can you travel forward in clear conscience and without unresolved emotional conflicts superimposed upon that child's life.
   Obviously there is a most appropriate time for resolving such issues, and for each woman that time will vary. For the first few days, you will be more focussed on the immediacies of your baby, but once you settle into the new lifestyle, revisiting a difficult birth is much easier. It is important then, that you do resolve it, rather than thinking "it is all over and I'd better focus on the present and the future".

   Depending on your birthing outcomes, healing can take anything from a few weeks to many years. The best way to resolve disturbing birth traumas is to use the methods of Yoga Nidra and meditation during the early post-natal weeks and at any subsequent time when those issues arises in your mind. My advice is to continue with this conscious healing process until you can re-live the truth of that birth without any kind of guilt or regrets. A program, specifically designed for PND, is included in Chapter 9 - "Post-Natal Depression (PND)", on page 2031.

Psychological Recovery
   In the few days after having giving birth, when all the physicalities of it are settling down, you realise that your mind is in a very different place to a few days before. Since all your senses, feelings and thoughts have been so stimulated by the recent events, there is a definite need for time and space to recover mentally. Some mothers joke that you never recover - and I think this is true in many ways!
   For some women, birth can be a deeply traumatic event, psychologically speaking. The behaviour of their mind immediately before, during and after their labour, shocks them deeply. Their so-called normal persona is overpowered by the energy of labour and they can then have difficulties facing themselves in the aftermath. This is one reason why privacy and sensitivity around a new mother is very important in the first few days and weeks. Having just been through a powerful event like childbirth, someone wanting to talk mundane trivialities can be a most annoying thing. Those who have not been through it often assume that you will just come out the other side of childbirth exactly like you were before. They hope you will be "back to normal soon", a nasty little cliché which only serves to undermine the new realms of personality a mother must now begin to explore.
   Time alone with your baby, for mental relaxation and self reflection, is therefore needed to make sense of the transformation you have just been through. In fact nature gives us this opportunity, by causing our body to lay low and our mind to introvert. Sessions of Yoga Nidra and meditation in the first few days after the birth, provide the opportunity for reflection upon your experience during the birth, as well as to contemplate the wonder of human creation. They are times to get back in touch with the very essence of yourself, before the experiences of new motherhood present a constant stream of changes and challenges. When doing