In plain words
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. In a session, you think about a painful memory while a therapist guides side-to-side eye movements, taps, or tones. The goal is for the memory to feel less loud and less charged over time. It is used for trauma, including trauma from a hard or frightening birth. Some mothers find it helps with flashbacks and the body's alarm response. Others find it does not fit them. EMDR is a therapy done with a trained clinician, not a home exercise. A mother can ask a whether they are trained in it. It is one option among several trauma-focused treatments.
The deeper version
EMDR is a structured eight-phase psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, in which bilateral stimulation is paired with imaginal exposure to a target memory and cognitive restructuring. Its proposed mechanisms include working memory interference and memory reconsolidation, and the evidence for those mechanisms remains contested. WHO guidance on conditions specifically related to stress (2013) and NICE guideline NG116 (2018) recommend or EMDR for established . The postpartum trial literature is small, and systematic reviews report feasibility and some benefit with methodological limits. Whether EMDR outperforms trauma-focused CBT is not settled.
Where it comes up
- Birth trauma and postpartum PTSDPostpartum: Mind
- Telling your birth storyBirth and the First Days
- When birth didn't go to planBirth and the First Days
- Finding a perinatal therapistPregnancy: Mind and Life
What mothers here say about EMDR
No one has posted under this term yet.
Sources
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence — Post-traumatic stress disorder, NICE guideline NG116, 2018
- World Health Organization — Guidelines for the prevention and management of perinatal mental health, 2022
- Furuta M et al. — Systematic review of psychological treatments for childbirth-related PTSD. 2018