Preventing and Healing Trauma in the Perinatal Period Lecture Pack

Billie has been serving birthing families for 35 years as a mentor, breastfeeding counsellor, childbirth educator, doula, and traditional birth attendant. She is the Founder and Director of Birth Trauma Ontario, an agency that advocates on behalf of parents for universal training in trauma-informed care for all perinatal health care providers and provides training and skills development for primary and allied health care professionals. Billie authored the world's first accredited certification course for becoming a trauma-informed professional specific to caring for the perinatal client. She has devoted decades to following the research that explores issues of maternal and infant health, birthing safety, and midwifery and obstetric practices in the context of culture and structural violence. She has educated doulas, midwives, physicians, nurses, and lactation counsellors in over 120 countries. Billie has been blessed with a very full life with 7 wonderful children, several amazing in-laws, some adorable grandchildren, a couple of decades of homeschooling, and hundreds of families who invited her into their families as they welcomed their precious babies.

Sarah McNamee is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and endorsed as an Infant Mental Health Mentor (Clinical). She is the Director/Owner of McNamee & Associates, LLC, a company that specializes in infant and early childhood mental health and supports families, communities, and providers through direct service, consultation, supervision/mentoring, and training. Sarah’s specialties include infant/early childhood mental health (with a focus on supporting families with baby/young child born premature, babies and young children with special health care needs, and highly sensitive babies/young children/parents), supporting infant regulation, reflective practice, and the provision of reflective supervision/consultation. Sarah is passionate about co-creating spaces that welcome the inherent wisdom and strength of individuals and communities in a trauma-informed and culturally responsive way. It is in these spaces that we discover the best tools we have for supporting individuals and communities, as well as changing our systems of care for babies, young children, and families. Sarah is the parent to three beautifully amazing and challenging human beings who continue to teach her the true meaning of intentional, attuned, and responsive caregiving.

Dr Justine Leach is an advocate for trauma-informed care in the perinatal period and co-founder of Resilient Birth, a company which trains healthcare providers and other perinatal professionals in supporting survivors giving birth. She also helps expectant parents with histories of trauma prepare for childbirth through trauma-informed childbirth education classes and birth support planning. Dr Leach became a B.A.C.E. certified childbirth educator and advocate after the birth of her two children revealed the impact of trauma experiences on childbirth. She has a Ph.D. on representations of sexual consent in narratives of rape and sexual trauma, and facilitates the Trauma-Informed Perinatal Professionals facebook group. Justine speaks about the experience of giving birth as a survivor of rape and the important role healthcare providers and perinatal professionals play in a birth giver’s experience of trauma or healing.

I am a Clinical Psychologist and transformation coach for women. I’ve also taught childbirth education. I have 12+ years experience supporting families through the worst traumas imaginable, to find growth, strength and beautiful resilience they never knew possible. After experiencing my own birth trauma (twice!) I quickly learned how little support and training there is for our birth workers who hear and witness these stories every day. From this, I developed two birth trauma training courses – one for parents, and one for birth workers. I gained over 650 enrolments in 3 months, so I know how much this work is needed. I also run a birth trauma training podcast, and I’m currently finishing writing my book. A beautiful, heartfelt call to action for families to not only find strength and growth after birth trauma, but to become the guardians of change in birth culture for the next generation.

Saleemah McNeil is a Reproductive Psychotherapist, Certified Lactation Consultant, professionally trained Birth Doula and a traumatic birth survivor. Saleemah has dedicated her work to helping families of color heal from traumatic birth experiences and transition into parenthood. Saleemah has held several positions in the field of Maternal & Child Health and Wellness. Mrs. McNeil furthered her knowledge and experience with vulnerable birthing persons and served as a Philadelphia County Jail Based Case Manager at Riverside Correctional Facility. In this role, she assisted birthing women during their most vulnerable times as a Doula. Working in the Department of Corrections, ignited anger and passion which ultimately guided Saleemah to a masters in clinical psychology and counseling . After watching years of unfair treatment and inhumane conditions, reproductive injustice, systemic racism and trauma, Saleemah founded a nonprofit organization, Oshun Family Center. She launched a citywide initiative to reduce Black maternal mortality through the “Maternal Wellness Village” program and became a key figure and content area expert in the region. Mrs. McNeil's work is rooted in a deep appreciation and understanding that surviving the 4th trimester can mean life or death for some women. As a clinician, advocate, researcher and trainer, Mrs. McNeil’s work is grounded in helping families not only survive but thrive by utilizing an anti-racism and trauma sensitive framework. Her passion has driven her to explore new endeavors such as impacting policy change and ultimately shifting the provider - client dynamic in healthcare by addressing the disparities for Black women.

Maria Caterina Cattaneo is a psychotherapist with a psychodynamic orientation and EMDR practitioner. In the 90s she accumulated a large experience in the field of the clinical psychology of the developmental age, both in public hospitals (Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry department in Lecco, and a collaboration with the department of Neonatal Pathology in Monza), and in the Scientific Institute Eugenio Medea in Bosisio Parini, where she has also done research on depression in children and adolescents, giving an important contribution to the Italian version of the Achenbach CBCL (4-18) . For several years she worked on the protection of minors (at the department of Social Services of the city of Monza) , conducting diagnosis and microanalysis of highly conflictual couples, and support groups for parents. Besides her free practice, since 2006 she has been coordinating the project on “When birth becomes crisis”, a collaborative project between the departments of Neonatology and Neonatal Pathology of the Maternity Hospital Mangiagalli in Milan and the Consultorio Familiare “Genitori Oggi”and , since the last year, in the Humanitas Hospital PioX. The clinical activity consists of psychological work in the maternity wards, inside the Hospital, and, when needed, therapeutic intervention with mothers or fathers , couples or mother - infant bonding at the Perinatal Psychology Unit, founded in 2006 at the same hospital. Since 2008 she has started the research activity of the Unit on the prevention of post-partum depression; some results of this research have been published in international journals, and have been presented at several AISMI conferences, while others are in the process of publication. In the last years she has started, with her collaborators, a new research project based on the use of EMDR in perinatal psychology, implying the preparation of two new protocols on delivery trauma and problems concerning breastfeeding.