Growing Forward Together Launches New Trauma Informed Perinatal Education Course for Labor & Delivery Nurses
ANN ARBOR 4 November 2025 – Growing Forward Together (GFT), a Michigan based nonprofit, is expanding its advanced trauma informed care educational offerings. Research shows that a significant number of pregnant and new moms are struggling with the effects of trauma including PTSD. When professional perinatal caregivers, including nurses and midwives, learn how to identify the signs of trauma, and how to provide trauma informed care, it can help address adverse birth outcomes for patients and their new babies.
Labor and birth can be especially stressful and triggering for patients with a history of trauma and PTSD. This has implications for the best ways to manage pain during delivery. GFT’s new online self-study course “Trauma Informed Care & Pain Management for Labor and Delivery Nurses” provides education to help address this. It teaches them to recognize signs of PTSD in patients and help support and manage pain for those patients during labor. The new course launched in August is the first in GFT’s new professional development course lineup with more courses to follow soon.
Trauma informed care (TIC) education is important because one in five people experience childhood abuse or neglect, 8% of women have PTSD in pregnancy, and of the 10% of women experiencing depression in pregnancy 85% of those also have a history of trauma. PTSD during pregnancy is associated with a number of poor birth outcomes including, but not limited to, traumatic or retraumatizing births, preterm birth, and impaired or delayed bonding. Perinatal healthcare professionals who are trained to provide TIC can help significantly improve these outcomes for pregnant women, new parents, and their babies.
The new course, developed by midwives Julia Seng and Mickey Sperlich, teaches labor and delivery nurses how to recognize signs of PTSD reactions in women in labor, explore pain management options with them, and teaches them which pain management options might be most effective and least retraumatizing for those patients, thereby meeting their needs best. The course is online, self-paced, and L&D nurses earn 3 continuing education (CE) contact hours upon successful course completion. The course also counts towards pain management continuing education required in MI, MN, NJ and OR. Continuing education is required to renew professional nursing licenses in most states.
About Growing Forward Together
Growing Forward Together’s mission is to provide advanced trauma education for expectant and new parents and their healthcare providers. GFT’s professional development courses, including this pain management course, are designed to empower healthcare professionals to provide universal trauma informed care to patients going through pregnancy and early parenting. GFT also provides trauma-specific education for pregnant people and new parents via their “Survivor Moms’ Companion ®” program.
For more information about GFT including their Professional Development and Survivor Moms’ Companion Programs please visit www.growingforwardtogether.org, or email info@growingforwardtogether.org.
Please direct all media inquiries to: Brigit Macomber MSW, Professional Development Program Director at Growing Forward Together, brigit@growingforwardtogether.org or 734-474-4065