What You’ll Learn in This Post:

• Why doulas experience vicarious trauma after shielding clients from difficult situations
• How to use expressive writing within 48-96 hours to reduce intrusive memories
• Why playing Tetris for 10-20 minutes helps your brain organize traumatic experiences
• How bilateral music supports memory processing and better sleep after hard births 
• Three science-backed interventions you can use tonight (that don’t require a therapist)

3 Things to Do After a Difficult Birth (That Actually Work)

A couple of years ago, I supported a client through a long, exhausting labor that ended very differently than she’d planned. Hours of back labor. An epidural she hadn’t wanted. And a nurse who kept making comments.

“Isn’t this better?” the nurse said after the epidural went in. “I don’t know why anyone would even try natural…”

I kept my face neutral. I stayed focused on my client, talking quietly about how brave she’d been to make a hard decision. How making choices that are different from your original plan, especially after labor goes differently than you imagined, takes real strength.

My client was fine. She processed her birth. She felt good about her choices.

But I went home carrying something heavy.

I realized later that I had shielded her from those judgmental comments. I had absorbed that negativity so she wouldn’t have to. That’s valid doula work, even though it came at a personal cost.

Here’s what I’ve learned in 30 years of training doulas and attending births: vicarious trauma is a real risk of this work. You can do everything right at a birth, support your client beautifully, and still go home feeling shaken.

The question isn’t whether you’ll experience difficult births. The question is: what will you do afterward?

Why Most “Self-Care” Advice Doesn’t Prevent Doula Burnout

After a hard birth, well-meaning people will tell you to “take a bath” or “get some rest.” You know, self-care. That’s fine. But it doesn’t address what’s actually happening in your brain.

When you witness or absorb something traumatic—even secondhand—your brain starts trying to process and store that memory. If you don’t give it the right tools, you may end up with intrusive memories, disrupted sleep, or that feeling of replaying the birth over and over.

This is how doula burnout starts. Not with one catastrophic event, but with the accumulation of difficult births you didn’t fully process.

The good news? Research shows there’s a window of time when your brain is particularly receptive to interventions that can help you process what happened. And these interventions are simple, accessible, and don’t require a therapist.

I’ve personally used all three of these techniques. They’re why I’m still practicing as a doula. I take care of myself.

The Three Things (Backed by Science)

1. Journal the Birth (But Don’t Read It Right Away)

What the research says: Multiple randomized controlled trials on expressive writing after childbirth show that a single 10-30 minute writing session, done 48-96 hours (2-4 days) after a traumatic birth, significantly reduces intrusive memories and symptoms of both PTSD and depression. The effects last for months.

Studies by Di Blasio and colleagues tested this with hundreds of postpartum people. Those who wrote about their thoughts and feelings about the birth—compared to those who wrote about daily events or didn’t write at all—had fewer intrusive memories and less emotional distress at 2 months and even 12 months later.

Here’s the interesting part: the intervention works even better for people with higher stress levels. If you’re really shaken by a birth, this matters even more.

How to do it:

Write for 15-20 minutes within 2-4 days of the birth. This is part debrief, part brain dump, part letting your emotions spill onto the page.

Write everything: • What happened (the timeline, the details) • What you thought during the birth • What you felt (scared, angry, helpless, sad, proud) • What you wish you’d said or done differently • What you did well

The key: Don’t read it right away.

Put it away for at least 2-3 days. Let yourself get some sleep and food first. Your brain needs time to process before you review what you wrote.

This isn’t about creating a perfect narrative. It’s about getting the fragments out of your head so your brain can start organizing them.

2. Play Tetris for 10-20 Minutes

What the research says: This sounds strange, but stay with me. Multiple studies show that playing Tetris after trauma reduces intrusive memories, those unwanted mental images that keep popping up.

Why Tetris specifically? It’s a visuospatial task that requires your brain to manipulate shapes and plan moves. This crosses the midline of your brain (left to right processing) and helps organize fragmented sensory memories.

Research on emergency cesarean births found that a single 15-minute Tetris session within 6 hours of the birth reduced intrusive memories in the week afterward. Another study showed it still worked when done up to 4 days later.

The mechanism: Traumatic memories get stored as fragmented sensory pieces, images, sounds, and physical sensations. Playing Tetris taxes the same mental resources your brain uses to replay those fragments, which interrupts the process of over-consolidating them into persistent intrusive memories.

How to do it:

Play Tetris (or a similar visuospatial puzzle game) for 10-20 minutes that night or within the next few days.

• Free Tetris apps are available on most phones 
• Don’t worry about your score, this isn’t about winning 
• Just play and let your brain do the work

Ideally, do this within 6 hours if you can, but research shows it still helps up to 4 days later.

3. Listen to Bilateral/Binaural Music Through Headphones

What the research says: Bilateral or binaural music, where sound moves back and forth between your ears or presents different frequencies to each ear, helps your brain process information across hemispheres.

Research on delta binaural beats (around 3 Hz) shows they improve sleep quality, reduce intrusive thoughts, and decrease anxiety and anger. Studies found that 90 minutes of binaural music before sleep helped people fall asleep earlier, wake up less during the night, and feel better the next morning.

Similar bilateral stimulation is used in EMDR therapy for trauma, the back-and-forth eye movements help the brain reprocess traumatic memories. Music that crosses between your ears does something similar.

How to do it:

Listen to bilateral or binaural music through headphones for 60-90 minutes before bed.

Free and paid options:

• Amazon Music has free bilateral beat tracks (search “delta binaural beats” or “bilateral music sleep”)
• Calm app has binaural beat sessions ($20/year after free trial)
• YouTube has free options (though ads may interrupt)

Set the volume to a comfortable level, you don’t need it loud. Just let it play while you’re lying down, relaxing, maybe journaling, or getting ready for sleep.

I’ve done this while napping after a long birth. It counts.

Why These Three Work Together for Doula Burnout Prevention

Notice what these interventions have in common:

They give your brain specific tasks to help organize fragmented memories. Journaling externalizes the thoughts. Tetris reorganizes the sensory pieces. Bilateral music supports cross-hemisphere processing.

They work in a specific time window. Your brain is most receptive to memory reconsolidation in the first few days after an event. Use that window.

You control what you can control. You can’t control what happens at births. You can’t always control hospital staff or how clients respond to unexpected changes. But you can control how you take care of yourself afterward.

This Is Part of the Work

I’ve debriefed hundreds of births with students and practicing doulas over the years. The births that weigh on you most are rarely the ones where everything goes wrong. They’re the ones where you did everything right, but you absorbed something difficult so your client wouldn’t have to.

Preeclampsia. Early inductions. Severe back labor. Epidurals that stop working. Challenging nurse dynamics. Emergency cesareans. Long pushes. Difficult repairs.

You may have shielded your client from some of the hardest parts. That’s what good doulas do. We absorb things so our clients don’t have to.

That absorption is real work. It’s valid. And it has a cost.

The difference between doulas who burn out and doulas who practice for decades? We take care of ourselves.

These three interventions, journaling, Tetris, and bilateral music, are part of how I’ve stayed in this work. They’re simple. They’re evidence-based. They work.

Your Assignment for Tonight

If you’ve just supported a client through a difficult birth:

1. 1. Journal for 15-20 minutes. Get it all out. Don’t read it yet.

1. 1. Play Tetris for 10-20 minutes. Let your brain reorganize.

1. 1. Listen to bilateral music through headphones before bed. Give yourself 60-90 minutes of processing support.

Do all three if you can. Do one or two if that’s all you’ve got capacity for. Something is better than nothing.

And here’s the thing you don’t know until you’ve been doing this work for a while: You don’t know what you don’t know.

You may not realize you’re carrying something until weeks later when you’re still thinking about that birth. Or you might feel fine now and then get triggered by a similar situation six months from now.

These interventions work best when you do them early, in that 2-4 day window when your brain is still actively processing.

Take care of yourself. This work matters. And you can’t keep doing it well if you’re running on empty.

Preventing doula burnout isn’t about avoiding difficult births. It’s about having tools to process them when they happen.

Have you tried any of these techniques after a difficult birth? Share your experience in the group. I’d love to hear what’s worked for you