Childbirth PTSD

Up to 45% of women report that their births were traumatic, and around 3% will experience PTSD. What are the differences between the two? What are the symptoms and risk factors for childbirth PTSD? What about Post-Traumatic Growth? Cheryl Tatano Beck tells us more. Check it out!

What we talked about:

• How do you define traumatic childbirth? What are some of its ripple effects?
• What takes it from a traumatic event to childbirth PTSD?
• PTSD symptoms
• How is it different from postpartum depression, or other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders?
• How prevalent is childbirth PTSD?
• Validation of perceived trauma
• Getting others to understand what the birthing mom is experiencing
• Making yourself heard
• Risk factors for birth PTSD
• Secondary traumatic stress in caregivers
• Lessening the chances of experiencing birth trauma
• Getting help after experiencing PTSD
• Post-Traumatic Growth

Related resources*:

• Postpartum Support International – postpartum.net
• TABS: TRAUMA AND BIRTH STRESS – tabs.org.nz
• Solace for Mothers – solaceformothers.org
• Prevention and Treatment of Traumatic Childbirth (PATTCh)
• What is Birth Trauma?, The Birth Trauma Association
• In the Eye of the Expert: An Interview with Cheryl Beck, Science & Sensibility
• Healing the Trauma: Entering Motherhood with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Midwifery Today
• Help For a Traumatic Delivery and Postpartum Depression, Huffington Post
• The Mothers Who Can’t Escape the Trauma of Childbirth, The Atlantic
• Birth trauma: in the eye of the beholder, Research Abstract
• A mixed methods study of secondary traumatic stress in labor and delivery nurses, Research Abstracy
• Secondary Traumatic Stress

Courtesy of Cheryl Tatano Beck

About Cheryl Tatano Beck, DNSc, CNM, FAAN

Dr. Beck is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut, School of Nursing.  She also has a joint appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the School of Medicine. She received her Master’s degree in maternal-newborn nursing and a certificate in nurse- midwifery from Yale University. Her Doctor of Nursing Science degree is from Boston University. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. She has received numerous awards such as the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nursing’s Distinguished Professional Service Award,  and the Distinguished Alumna Award from Yale University.

Over the past 30 years Cheryl has focused her research efforts on developing a research program on postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. Based on the findings from her series of qualitative studies, Cheryl developed the Postpartum Depression Screening Scale (PDSS) which is published by Western Psychological Services.  She is a prolific writer who has published over 150 journal articles. Cheryl is co-author with Dr. Denise Polit of the textbook, Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice. Editions of this text received both the 2007 and the 2011 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award. Their Essentials of Nursing Research textbook just won the 2013 AJN Book of the Year Award. Cheryl co-authored with Dr. Jeanne Driscoll Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorders: A Clinician’s Guide which received the 2006 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award. Cheryl’s latest 3 books include Traumatic Childbirth, and The Routledge International Handbook of Qualitative Nursing Research, and Developing a Program of Research in Nursing.

For more info on Cheryl, and how to contact her, check out her faculty page at the University of Connecticut