Perinatal EMDR
EMDR for Perinatal Mental Health
The perinatal journey can bring some of the most profound experiences of a lifetime — and some of the most painful.
Whether you are in the middle of something difficult right now, or still carrying something from a birth, loss, or experience that happened months or even years ago — you deserve support that truly understands what you've been through. EMDR is one of the most powerful tools available for helping the nervous system heal from perinatal experiences that have left their mark. And this is work I know deeply — not just as a therapist, but from over two decades in perinatal care.
Why EMDR for the perinatal journey?
The perinatal period — from preconception through pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum year — is one of the most neurologically and emotionally significant transitions a person can experience. It can also be a time when past wounds resurface, when new traumas occur, and when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed in ways that don't simply resolve on their own.
EMDR works by helping the brain process experiences that have become "stuck" — stored as raw, unintegrated memory rather than digested experience. In the perinatal context, this might mean a birth that still feels vivid and frightening long after it's over, a loss that sits in the body as grief that won't move, or an anxiety about what's ahead that no amount of reassurance seems to touch.
Rather than requiring you to talk through every detail of what happened, EMDR works gently and directly with how the experience is held in your body and nervous system. Many people find this a significant relief — especially when words feel inadequate to describe what they've been through.
What can EMDR help with?
EMDR can be helpful for a wide range of perinatal experiences. You don't need to have had a "dramatic" event to benefit — many people seek EMDR for experiences that others minimized or that they feel they "should be over by now." Your experience is valid, whatever its shape.
Birth trauma · Postpartum PTSD · Pregnancy and infant loss · Fear of childbirth
Postpartum anxiety · Postpartum depression · Traumatic medical procedures · NICU trauma
Difficult fertility treatment · Miscarriage and pregnancy loss · Complicated or premature birth · Previous trauma triggered by birth
Intrusive memories or flashbacks · Anxiety about a future pregnancy · Bonding difficulties
EMDR can be used safely during pregnancy as well as postpartum — and there is growing evidence that addressing trauma and distress during the perinatal period benefits not only the parent, but the developing baby and the early parent-infant relationship as well.
Support from someone who has been in the room
Many therapists offer EMDR. Far fewer bring to that work what I bring.
Before becoming a psychotherapist, I spent eleven years as a Registered Midwife in Ontario — attending hundreds of births in urban, rural, and remote settings, including a locum placement in Nunavut. For ten years I also worked as a doula, providing continuous emotional and physical support through labour and the early postpartum period. I have been present at the most joyful births and the most devastating ones. I have held families through loss, through fear, through the quiet shock of an experience that didn't go the way they hoped.
I have also completed specialist training in perinatal EMDR through the Touchstone Institute, and in Maternal Mental Health and Advanced Perinatal Psychotherapy through Postpartum Support International — one of the world's leading organizations in this field.
When you work with me on perinatal trauma, you are working with someone who doesn't need it explained. I already understand the landscape — clinically, emotionally, and from lived professional experience. That changes the work in ways that are hard to quantify but easy to feel.
What to expect
Perinatal EMDR sessions are paced carefully and with your wellbeing — and your baby's, if you are pregnant — always in mind. We begin by getting a thorough understanding of your experience and what you'd like to work on. Before any processing begins, we build a solid foundation of resourcing and stabilization so you feel grounded and supported throughout.
You are never required to describe your experience in detail, and you are always in control of the pace. Many people are surprised by how manageable — and how effective — the process feels, even when working with experiences that have felt impossible to approach.
You don't have to keep carrying this.
Whatever you've been through — whatever is still with you — there is a path through it. I would be honoured to walk alongside you. If you'd like to explore whether EMDR perinatal therapy might be right for you, the first step is simply a conversation.