TRIGGER WARNING: Trauma and the Womb

Prenatal trauma shapes behavior.

I’ve been speaking about this issue silently for 15 years as I’m not a medical practitioner. This issue first came to light for me around 2007/08 as I had begun seeing things that first of all, I thought may not be quite right, then I started questioning why professionals weren’t speaking about this. I did all of this inside my mind as I didn’t have the courage to say it out loud, I seemed to be the only one thinking it.

What I felt I had been seeing when I worked as a probation officer, was that men convicted of crimes did not commit crimes because they were bad people, they committed crimes because they had been neglected and suffered abuse as children then as young adults no one listened to them or heard what they wanted. If their lives had led them down this path, when did the problem really begin? 

They committed crimes because they had been neglected and suffered abuse as children then as young adults no one listened to them or heard what they wanted.

I was always able to see the good side of who we call offenders. 

Let me explain.I worked as a probation officer from 2007 and worked with adults, anyone over eighteen, usually men but I’ve held specialist caseloads of women too. After working with adults for over five years, and realizing that their behaviours were now entrenched, I believed I would be more successful working with younger people, that is, children aged 10 -18 years of age. I chose to work in Youth Offending in the UK. I believed I would make a bigger difference in their lives as I would get to them earlier in their offending ‘careers/history’. 

What I didn’t know was that although you got to work with a younger age group, there were other hoops to go through such as parents and carers, schools and the myriad of other people the children would be involved in. If they were in Youth Offending they would be involved with many other institutions. There would be so much outside, so-called professional interference in their lives that I would not be able to connect and create the trust that is needed quite as efficiently.

Parents aren’t necessarily the best assets when you’re working with children who’ve committed crimes. In their zest to protect their child, they disturbed the work I could do. If the child was telling me something and possibly telling me the truth, I found in some cases that mum interrupted and told another story thereby deflecting any constructive work we could have achieved. She effectively taught her child to lie, right in front of me and I could do nothing about it except record it, which is equally damaging in some cases.

What became more and more obvious to me was that their problems didn’t start in early childhood although there were obvious markers such as experiencing domestic abuse at home, parents who were fighting and had neglected them, perhaps the death of someone they loved. Many were being raised on the streets and turning to drugs and alcohol as coping mechanisms.

I had believed for some time that the problems started in the womb, in pregnancy. I felt that if I could see this, why couldn’t the medical professionals? Why hadn’t anyone in health raised this issue? 

By 2011, I had begun working with teens using violence to parents and grandparents and also with 5, 6 and 7 year olds using violence toward their mothers. They would scratch their mothers arms and bite them; mums would wear clothes that were covering their arms and bodies to prevent anyone seeing the marks.  

I’d had nurses attend my domestic violence training days asking us to guide them in dealing with children and domestic violence as this wasn’t common knowledge in 2006/07. As nothing was spoken of, nurses continued experiencing trauma. One of the first cases shared by a nurse was about a baby who had died inside the womb because of the extreme physical violence that mum was going through. The baby still had to be birthed which was traumatic not only for the mum but for the nurses responsible in the case.

Teens who used violence toward their parents and grandparents were defined as the ideal child by mentors, teachers and headteachers alike. So what I then did was to ask questions of everyone connected to the child: when did they notice a change, what happened to them, when did they begin using violence? No suitable response was forthcoming as not only were there no recorded incidents but as stated, these were ideal students. Teachers wanted their classes to be full of this type of student.

I started asking mothers about their pregnancy, what had happened and how they had felt? 

Each mother told me they had experienced domestic violence and termed it as having been in an abusive relationship when they were pregnant with the child I was working with. In one case, the mum did not want to discuss it further, naturally so, as it was triggering for her. 

While I could accept this as a professional, I did feel some concern for her daughter who would never find out why she was so violent toward her mum and why she had these feelings of rage that she only unleashed on her family. She herself was unlikely to think that when she was in her mother’s womb, her father was being abusive to her mother so healing for her may be difficult in her life and may never happen. This cycle is likely to continue as she will pass her unresolved issues down generationally.

I wanted to raise this in the magazine as it’s an area that still isn’t explored as much as it should be. I’ve seen the outcomes in families where there was domestic violence occurring in the womb. I worked with a few of the children ‘off the record’ because as I’ve stated, I’m not a medical professional but what these families needed was not a medical professional. They needed someone who understood that domestic violence happens in pregnancy and what it does to the unborn and then what can happen to the baby when it’s born. 

Explaining to a mother who has been in an abusive relationship that her child is not safe just because they are in her tummy is quite problematic. It raises issues of her not being a good mother, not being someone who understood what was happening but the incredible thing it does do is, it lets the woman know that she wasn’t to blame and that there are other women experiencing what she has going through. This provides strength as the women recognise they are not alone.

The women I’ve worked with voluntarily in this situation have been able to get the information they need and I’m happy to report, they chose to apply what I had taught them. Their relationships with their child have been very strong as both learned to listen to one another, a skill of immense value where there’s been abuse. 

What I wanted to share here was that too many children experience trauma in the womb through domestic violence. No physical abuse has to take place, just the presence of fear which will come through emotional, psychological, financial abuse as well as having isolated her from friends and family. There are many abuses I have not listed here. 

Too many children experience trauma in the womb through domestic violence. No physical abuse has to take place, just the presence of fear which will come through emotional, psychological, financial abuse as well as having isolated her from friends and family.

But guess what? There is hope. We can reverse engineer what’s happened in the womb in the first six months of the baby's life. What is needed is for the mum to feel safe because she is living in survival mode, physically present, mentally just trying to get to the next moment - breakfast, lunch, dinner or to the next day. 

We have to provide her with a space of safety, to feel loved and trusted so she can become present for her child. If we can begin this process soon after birth, the relationships can be restored sufficiently. If we miss the first six months, it will take longer but it can still be done.

Ruby Raja | Author, a Certified Trauma facilitator

Meet the expert:

Ruby Raja is the Author of Healing from Narcissistic Abuse - Journeys from Abuse to Freedom. She is a Domestic Violence Trainer and a BeyondTrauma Facilitator and Trainer.  She worked for fifteen years as a Probation Officer in the UK and is currently delivering domestic violence and trauma services in England and USA, in person and online.

Dive Deeper Into Her Wealth of Knowledge:

www.inshiraa.com