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Postnatal birth trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is now being recognized as an important cause of severe mental health issues following childbirth. It has been estimated to affect 1 – 21% of women at this time.
Childbirth is not perceived uniformly by all laboring and delivering women as a time of joy, but instead may be a time of great threat and danger to the unborn child and/or the mother, coupled with intense fear and lack of control.
The labor pain may reawaken memories of early trauma associated with feelings of intense vulnerability. This may then become associated with the birthing process, making it a fresh and horrifying repetition of the earlier pain. Other women may perceive this time negatively, being conditioned to expect high levels of pain and feelings of helplessness. This again results in the experience of fear in the absence of any specifically abnormal event during delivery or afterwards.
Several factors are associated with a higher incidence of birth trauma, such as:
In view of the above, support for women with PTSD begins with assessment of the mental health of all expectant and new mothers at each postnatal visit, with sensitivity and a willingness to understand their frame of mind without prejudice.
Careful questioning should indicate the availability of help for the woman who is struggling with past or present issues. These may include those such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, or female genital mutilation, or any other situation in which she feels powerless and threatened.
Trained professional assessment is preferable to relying solely on the woman’s own evaluation and honesty, as the mere fact of seeing a health professional is itself a threat to shy or reserved women, or women who are embarrassed to admit their neediness to a stranger.
Secondly, other psychiatric conditions should be ruled out by mental health professionals. This is especially important because depression and PTSD overlap in many features.
A woman with PTSD should be offered the opportunity to debrief i.e., to tell her birth story to a friendly, empathetic health professional so that she can discover hidden aspects of it and thus resolve some of the story. This provides mental strength to overcome the fear associated with the memory of the experience. Benefits also include: