Cancer survivors might discover that their chemo ordeal brought them closer to friends and family, or helped them step back from the hustle of everyday life and embrace a slower pace.Īlthough childbirth is typically experienced as a joyful rather than a tragic event, it can still be unpredictable, frightening and even life-threatening. Research on what psychologists call post-traumatic growth has found that the level of “meaning-making” in people’s narratives about a difficult event predicts their mental health over time.įor example, studies have found links between meaning-making and resilience in cancer patients, bereaved parents and caregivers. Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl’s memoir, “ Man’s Search for Meaning,” argued that meaning and purpose can prevent the bitterness and disillusionment that can otherwise fester after great loss. “Meaning-making” can buffer despair in the wake of tragedy. As writer Joan Didion put it, “ we tell ourselves stories in order to live.” BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Constructing meaning in your own lifeįinding meaningful themes and patterns in life’s seeming randomness is a fundamentally human activity. When new moms come together, the talk often turns to their childbirth stories. In a new study led by Geoffrey Corner, a former graduate student in my lab, we found that the levels of meaning-making in the stories new parents told about their baby’s birth predicted their relationship quality and parenting stress in the child’s first months. Stories may be particularly valuable as a source of “meaning-making,” the process of finding order in chaos by making sense of unexpected events, identifying silver linings and discovering the patterns and connections that thread seemingly random events together into a coherent narrative. People have long used stories to understand difficult experiences.
People are fascinated by this pivotal, emotionally complex and literally life-and-death experience.īirth narratives might also contain clues about how the adjustment to parenthood will go. Birth story podcasts and websites feature a curated range of birth experiences, and you can buy embossed leather “birth story” journals as a baby shower gift. Gather a group of new parents and the conversation will likely turn to their childbirth stories – ranging from the joyful to the gnarly to the positively traumatic.
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