Perinatal

Supporting You Through Pregnancy, Birth, and the Transition to Parenthood

Becoming a parent is one of life's most profound identity shifts. The perinatal period—from pregnancy through the first year postpartum—can bring unexpected challenges alongside joy. Your body changes, your relationships shift, your sense of self evolves. Sometimes the experience doesn't match what you imagined, and that disconnect can be disorienting.

You don't have to navigate this alone.

When to Reach Out

You might benefit from perinatal support if you're experiencing:

During Pregnancy:

Anxiety about labor, delivery, or becoming a parent
Depression, mood changes, or feeling disconnected from your pregnancy
Processing fertility challenges, pregnancy loss, or complicated medical histories
Navigating high-risk pregnancy or medical interventions
Identity questions about who you're becoming

After Birth:

Postpartum depression, anxiety, or overwhelm
Birth trauma or PTSD from your delivery experience
Difficulty bonding with your baby or feeling disconnected
Intrusive thoughts or excessive worry about your baby's safety
Grief about how your birth unfolded
Adjustment challenges or feeling like you've lost yourself
Relationship strain with your partner or support system
Physical recovery that's impacting your emotional wellbeing

The Transition to Parenthood:

Role negotiation with your partner about parenting responsibilities
Navigating changed relationships with family, friends, or your body
Return-to-work stress and identity conflicts
Questions about attachment, feeding, sleep, or parenting approaches
Preparing for subsequent pregnancies after previous trauma

Understanding Birth Trauma

Between 25-34% of birthing people report their births as traumatic. Birth trauma can result from:

Medical trauma: Unexpected interventions, emergency C-sections, medical complications, NICU admission, use of forceps or vacuum, severe tearing, hemorrhage
Psychological trauma: Feeling powerless, dismissed, or unsafe during labor; lack of informed consent; feeling unheard by medical providers
Previous trauma activation: When birth reactivates earlier experiences of abuse, medical trauma, or loss

Birth trauma is not about whether your baby is "healthy" or whether you had the "right" kind of birth. Trauma is about your experience—how you felt, what happened to your body and your sense of agency, and how your nervous system responded.

Common responses to birth trauma include:

Flashbacks or intrusive memories of the birth
Avoidance of reminders (hospitals, medical settings, birth stories)
Hypervigilance about your baby's health or safety
Difficulty bonding or feeling emotionally numb
Anxiety, panic, or feeling constantly on edge
Anger at medical providers or yourself
Grief about the birth you didn't have

These responses make sense given what you experienced. They're your nervous system trying to protect you.

Our Trauma-Informed Approach

We understand that perinatal challenges don't exist in isolation—they're shaped by your nervous system, your attachment history, your relationships, and the systems you're navigating (medical, familial, cultural). Our approach:

Honors Your Experience as Valid

We don't measure your trauma against anyone else's. If your birth felt traumatic, it was traumatic. If you're struggling, that struggle is real and deserves support.

Centers Your Nervous System

Pregnancy, birth, and early parenting profoundly affect your nervous system. We help you understand what's happening in your body and build regulation skills that support both you and your baby.

Supports Attachment and Connection

When you're struggling, bonding with your baby can feel harder. We work to strengthen your connection—not through pressure or shame, but through understanding, co-regulation, and compassionate exploration.

Addresses Identity Shifts

Becoming a parent changes who you are. We create space to grieve who you were, explore who you're becoming, and integrate these identities in ways that feel authentic to you.

Includes Your Support System

Perinatal mental health affects relationships. When appropriate, we involve partners, co-parents, or support people to strengthen your network and share the load.

What We Offer

Individual Perinatal Therapy

One-on-one support for processing birth trauma, managing postpartum anxiety or depression, navigating identity shifts, and building confidence as a parent. We use trauma-focused modalities including:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for birth trauma
Polyvagal-informed nervous system work
Internal Family Systems (IFS) for parts work around parenting
DBT skills for emotion regulation and distress tolerance

Couples & Partner Support

The transition to parenthood strains even strong relationships. We help partners:

Navigate role changes and parenting philosophies
Repair connection after birth trauma or medical challenges
Process disappointment, grief, or conflicting experiences of the birth
Rebuild intimacy and communication
Share the mental and emotional load of parenting

Birth Story Processing

If you're struggling with how your birth unfolded, we offer dedicated sessions to:

Create a coherent narrative of what happened
Process medical interventions and their emotional impact
Understand gaps in memory or dissociation during birth
Work through feelings of failure, shame, or anger
Prepare for future pregnancies with trauma-informed planning

DBT Skills for Perinatal Mental Health

Learn practical skills for managing anxiety, regulating emotions, tolerating distress, and communicating needs—essential tools for the demands of early parenthood. Available through our 10-week group class or integrated into individual sessions.

Preparation for Subsequent Pregnancies

If you've experienced birth trauma, pregnancy loss, or perinatal mental health challenges, planning for another pregnancy can feel overwhelming. We help you:

Process previous experiences before conceiving again
Create a trauma-informed birth plan
Build coping strategies for managing anxiety during pregnancy
Coordinate with your medical team for supportive care
Strengthen your nervous system and support network

The Identity Shift of Parenthood

Research shows that becoming a parent is the most significant identity transformation in a person's life—more profound than adolescence, career changes, or retirement. This shift can feel:

Lonely: Even when surrounded by people
Isolating: Like no one understands what you're experiencing
Disorienting: Like you've lost yourself completely
Overwhelming: The responsibility feels enormous
Ambivalent: You can love your child and still grieve your former life

All of these feelings can coexist. Struggling doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're human.

We create space for you to:

Explore this transformation with honesty
Make sense of conflicting emotions
Identify where you are and where you want to go
Find yourself again—not as you were, but as you're becoming

Who We Serve

Our perinatal support is for:

Pregnant people at any stage
Birthing and non-birthing parents
LGBTQ+ families navigating parenthood
People processing fertility challenges or pregnancy loss
Families healing from birth trauma or NICU experiences
Parents feeling disconnected, anxious, or depressed
Anyone navigating the massive transition to parenthood

We provide affirming, non-judgmental care regardless of how you became a parent, how you feed your baby, or what your family structure looks like.

Insurance & Accessibility

Individual perinatal therapy may be covered by insurance when there's a diagnosis that meets medical necessity criteria. We recognize that not all perinatal struggles fit neatly into diagnostic categories, and we work with you to access coverage when possible.

For those without coverage or seeking additional support, our DBT Skills Class offers affordable, tiered-pricing access to essential coping tools.

When to Seek Immediate Help

If you're experiencing:

Thoughts of harming yourself or your baby
Severe disconnection from reality (hallucinations, delusions)
Inability to care for yourself or your baby

Please call 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or go to your nearest emergency room. You can also call the Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262) for free, confidential support.

These symptoms are treatable, and you deserve immediate care.

Ready to Begin?

Reaching out is an act of strength, not weakness. You deserve support, and your experience deserves to be honored.

Schedule a Free Consultation