C-section Therapy

Having a C-Section Is Emotional: Therapy Can Help Sort Through The Complexities

At Tribeca Maternity, we recognize that women often have very different emotional responses to having a C-section. How you feel about your experience is how you feel—and that’s okay. While some C-sections are elective, often circumstances make the decision for you. In therapy sessions at our Tribeca offices, as well as our teletherapy and video chat therapy options, we’ll sort through the complexities of having a C-section together, helping you:

• Work through disappointment over an unplanned C-section
• Process the experience of traumatic C-sections
• Unpack feelings of disempowerment when not being involved in clinical decision making
• Find strength in owning an elective C-section

When Deciding to Have an Elective C-Section

There are a lot of ways to approach the decision to have (or not have) a C-section. At Tribeca Maternity, we’re not interested in telling you what to do. We’ll help you choose what’s right for you based on your emotional needs, as well as your and your baby’s health, including factoring in safety risks and medical conditions that may affect your decision. Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of judgment about these decisions and your reasons for them, among friends, family and even, providers. We’ll help you make the decision that’s right for you, not others, and sort through your own response to whatever choice you make.

A C-Section Is Major Surgery: You Need to Recover

After a C-section, you’re recovering from major surgery. This reality often goes under-recognized as you leave the hospital and immediately start caring for your baby. But it’s crucial for you to care for yourself and organize the people around you to take care of you too. In therapy, we’ll help you acknowledge what happened with friends, family, and your partner, as well as speak up for what you need so there’s space and support for you to recover. 

Recovery is not only physical, but emotional too. C-sections are often accompanied by frustration and disappointment that one’s body didn’t work the way one hoped. In most instances, there is an experience of choice being taken away, not only by the reality of how the birth progressed, but also by a provider who was more insistent on the necessity of a C-section than the mother and partner felt was justified. These experiences of an absence of choice carry resonance for many women with experiences of sexism, rape, or sexual assault.

We Help Couples Maintain Closeness and Intimacy After a C-section

C-sections, of course, also raise issues between partners, particularly when there may have been a disagreement about what course of action was necessary or resentment in believing a partner wasn’t a strong enough advocate. In couples therapy at our Lower Manhattan offices, as well as in online couples therapy, we help couples address: 

• Each partner’s emotional response to the decision to have a C-section, whether or not it was elective
• Navigating sex after a C-section
• Ways to maintain intimacy after a C-section
• How your dynamic may have changed during recovery