A courageous mother battling the worst birth trauma and PTSD

When you hear Henrietta's story, you will just have to help (warning, the details are traumatic and may prove triggering). She is my hero, courageously battling to get the help she needs. Henrietta has given me permission to share these details, we talked about it today.

Henrietta lost her baby at 38 weeks of pregnancy, a tragic stillbirth, shortly before a planned Caesarean. The doctors decided that she should give birth vaginally. What followed was like a horror movie. An attempt at forceps delivery resulted in decapitation of the baby and other injuries. Henrietta never got to hold her baby. Her most precious memory is an imprint of her baby's hand. She has that baby hand tattooed on her face to catch the tears falling from her eye. Members of her whanau have also had the same tattoo.

The full story was told on Maori TV (https://www.teaomaori.news/native-affairs-stillbirth) but years later she is still struggling to overcome her trauma.

I work as a trauma therapist in Raglan. I met Henrietta when I offered her free care during a womens' retreat. Her case shocked me. I have never seen worse PTSD. Five years on the event, Henrietta is haunted by the memory of those awful events. No amount of psychiatry, psychology, counselling or social support has helped. She is unable to work. She is the mother of two small children and her young son will need a liver transplant one day.

The therapy I offer is the first approach that is helping Henrietta. She said, "I want to thank you for your treatment, it has taken my sickly cry away". For the first time, she believes she can heal from a lifetime of trauma. We are scoring her PTSD level and it's getting better and better.

The great news is, Henrietta has managed to find funding to support this therapy. Lots of people are reaching out to help her. And she battles courageously to change the system for others. She worked for years with lawyers to get her case heard. She is my hero.

Yesterday she messaged me to say she was not able to come for treatment because she has no money to pay for the petrol. Like so many others, she is caught in a trap of trauma and poverty.

For the first time she has hope and a chance to heal. She just needs a little support to pay for things like petrol. She would love to get new teeth so she can smile again. Will you help?