Birth Notes

A breathtaking memoir of recovery told from the crux where birth trauma and sexual trauma meet.

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'When a woman gives birth, she may, unwittingly, remember violent things. Ugly things. Unspoken things.'

After her twins were born, Jessica Cornwell stopped feeling. Plagued by memories of a traumatic birth, wrestling with ongoing physical pain and the brutal demands of caring for two tiny babies, she struggled to experience joy and love. Instead, she was consumed by fear and haunted by recurrent thoughts of blood and danger.

It was only when she received a diagnosis of post-partum PTSD and began therapy that Jessica was able to confront the secrets in her past. As she began to understand how her experience of birth had triggered her traumatic memories of sexual assault, she was finally able to integrate those memories into her identity as a mother and a survivor - and begin to heal.

'A redemptive tale of the power and wisdom of women's bodies' Leah Hazard

'This book undid me... and filled me with hope' Elinor Cleghorn

'Magnificent... a work of truth, understanding, scholarship and hope' Susie Orbach

'An astonishing memoir... about the intersection between birth trauma and sexual trauma, medical misogyny' Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett