And the symptoms manifest themselves in many different ways. Regardless of the exact numbers, for those who go through these experiences, there can be a long-lasting impact on their lives. Some research has found evidence that fathers can suffer it too after witnessing their partner go through a traumatic birth. With 130 million babies born around the world every year, that means that a staggering number of women may be trying to cope with the disorder with little or no recognition.Īnd postnatal PTSD might not only be a problem for mothers. One study from 2003 found that around a third of mothers who experience a “traumatic delivery”, defined as involving complications, the use of instruments to assist delivery or near death, go on to develop PTSD. Some studies that have attempted to quantify the problem estimate that 4% of births lead to the condition. There are few official figures for how many women suffer from postnatal PTSD, and because of the continued lack of recognition of the condition in mothers, it is difficult to say how common the condition really is. According to the World Health Organization, 803 women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every day. This effectively implied that before this change, childbirth was deemed too common to be highly traumatic – despite the life-changing injuries, and sometimes deaths, women can suffer as they bring children into the world. The association originally considered PTSD to be “something outside the range of usual human experience”, but then changed the definition to include an event where a person “witnessed or confronted serious physical threat or injury to themselves or others and in which the person responded with feelings of fear, helplessness or horror”. “Women with trauma may feel fear, helplessness or horror about their experience and suffer recurrent, overwhelming memories, flashbacks, thoughts and nightmares about the birth, feel distressed, anxious or panicky when exposed to things which remind them of the event, and avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma, which can include talking about it," says Patrick O’Brien, a maternal mental health expert at University College Hospital and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK.ĭespite these potentially debilitating effects, postnatal PTSD was only formally recognised in the 1990s when the American Psychiatry Association changed its description of what constitutes a traumatic event. And the symptoms tend to be similar for people no matter the trauma they experienced. You might also like these other stories in the Health Gap:īut millions of women worldwide develop PTSD not only from fighting on a foreign battlefield – but also from struggling to give birth, as I did. More than 100 years after the guns of that conflict fell silent, PTSD is still predominantly associated with war and as something largely experienced by men. The condition, formerly known as “shellshock”, first came to prominence when men returned from the trenches of World War One having witnessed unimaginable horrors. PTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events, which are often relived through flashbacks and nightmares. This is one of the ways I experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My life is no longer at risk, but I can’t stop replaying the terrifying scene that replayed in my head as I slept, so I remain alert, listening for any sound in the dark. My pillow is soaked with cold sweat, my body tense and shaking after waking from the same nightmare that haunts me every night.
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