Final Thoughts
The perinatal period is a time of profound transformation—one that brings joy but can also surface fears, past trauma, and emotional struggles. EMDR provides a structured, effective approach to processing these challenges, fostering resilience, and helping individuals navigate parenthood with greater clarity and confidence.
My mission is to integrate EMDR into perinatal care, equipping both parents and providers with the tools to feel more grounded, calm, and supported through these specific transitions.
Creating a Safe EMDR Experience for Perinatal Clients
Safety and pacing are critical when working with perinatal clients. Many are already in a heightened state of vulnerability, so therapy should prioritize stabilization before deeper trauma work. Additionally, therapy must be flexible—adapting to postpartum recovery, feeding schedules, and the evolving demands of parenthood.
1. Strengthens Emotional Regulation and Distress Tolerance
The perinatal period can bring overwhelming emotions—fear, sadness, guilt. EMDR’s early phases focus on resource development, helping clients build emotional regulation tools such as visualization techniques and grounding exercises. These tools create a foundation of safety before trauma processing begins.
Important Considerations:
-The Perinatal Window of Tolerance refers to the emotional and physiological state in which a client can process traumatic material without becoming overwhelmed (hyperarousal) or shutting down (hypoarousal). Given the rapid changes in this period, it’s essential to regularly assess a client’s Window of Tolerance.
-Negative and positive cognitions should be adapted to the perinatal experience. Some examples include:
“Taking care of myself is taking care of my baby.”
“My attachment to my baby is flexible and growing.”
“I accept the reality of being vulnerable.”
Clients may not believe these statements right away—therapy holds space for hope until they do.
2. Helps Process Birth Trauma and Universal Trauma Themes
Approximately 43% of women describe their birth as traumatic. But even medically “normal” births can involve physical, emotional, and identity upheaval. EMDR provides a structured way to revisit these events, reducing distressing emotions like fear, helplessness, or disappointment.
Below are some Universal Trauma Themes that can help normalize a client’s distress and map out treatment:
-Safety/Vulnerability
-Choice/Guilt
-Responsibility/Shame
-Belonging/Connection
By recognizing these themes and reprocessing trauma, clients can move forward without allowing past experiences to shape their present or future negatively.
3. Supports Grief and Loss Healing
Pregnancy loss, infertility, and NICU stays can trigger deep grief. EMDR helps clients process this grief in a healthy, integrated way—especially when the grief is traumatic, leading to dissociation instead of intentional mourning.
Strategies to Process Grief in EMDR:
-Creating space for chaotic, painful emotions by allowing the client to cry, walk or emote in a way that feels vulnerable
-Using body-based techniques to release stored trauma through movement, somatic and nervous system regulation therapies.
Important Note: Trauma can trick the brain into believing it’s still happening.
EMDR helps the nervous system recognize that the event is over, making space in perinatal clients for hope and healing.
4. Prepares Clients for Labor, Delivery, and Postpartum
Many expectant parents fear childbirth—pain, medical interventions, loss of control. EMDR helps target these fears, allowing clients to approach labor with more confidence and calm.
The Future Template exercise in EMDR helps clients prepare for uncertainties by:
-Visualizing themselves navigating labor with self-trust
-Practicing grounding techniques for moments of distress
-Rehearsing boundary-setting with healthcare providers, in-laws, and partners
By proactively addressing fears, clients can feel more in control, even when labor unfolds unpredictably.
5. Provides Ongoing Support for Postpartum Adjustments
The postpartum period brings significant shifts—sleep deprivation, identity changes, and resurfacing past wounds. EMDR helps process triggers, build resilience, and support parent-baby attachment.
Three Core Parenting Tasks that shape a perinatal client’s experience:
1. Managing emotions day to day
2. Developing a parental identity
3. Navigating relationships—with baby, partner, family, healthcare providers, etc
A key distinction for new parents to understand:
Bonding = A parent’s feelings of devotion and protectiveness, which begin in utero.
Attachment = A baby’s developing sense of security in relationships over time.
Not loving the newborn stage? Feeling disconnected? That has nothing to do with attachment.
-EMDR helps separate anxiety from reality, ensuring nothing disrupts the parent-baby bond.
5 Ways EMDR Supports Perinatal Mental Health
Perinatal Mental Health and EMDR
The perinatal period - pregnancy and postpartum - is a time of profound transformation. It is often associated with joy and excitement AND it can also surface anxiety, unresolved trauma, identity shifts and emotional overwhelm. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a powerful, science-backed therapy that helps perinatal clients process these challenges, build resilience, and step into parenthood with greater confidence.
EMDR can be particularly beneficial for:
-Birth Trauma
-Pregnancy loss or infertility
-Anxiety about childbirth or parenthood
-Past trauma resurfacing during pregnancy or postpartum
-Attachment or bonding difficulties with a baby
What is EMDR?
EMDR is an evidence-based therapy that helps individuals reprocess distressing memories using bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones). This technique enables the brain to integrate painful experiences in a way that reduces their emotional intensity.
At its core, EMDR helps clients shift from an intellectual understanding (“I know I’m safe”) to an embodied belief (“I feel safe”). It reconnects the brain’s thinking and emotional centers, which trauma often disrupts.
Written By: Sarah Donovan, LCPC, RYT
Photography: By ebradyrobinson.com
February 7, 2025
- Licensed Mental Health Therapist in Maryland
- Founder of Tilted Root Counseling and Therapies: Specializing in Perinatal Mental Health, EMDR and Trauma
- Certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant-in-Training
How EMDR Supports Perinatal and Maternal Mental Health: Integrating Science, Specialized Compassion & Evidence-Based Therapy
