Post-Traumatic (Childbirth) Stress Disorder

Source:
Leeder, Jessica. “Parenting: Post-Traumatic (Childbirth) Stress Disorder.” Today’s Parent. Rogers Digital Media. 2017. 20 March 2017. 

You can read the full article HERE

Summary: 
This short online magazine article offers firsthand accounts of a little known phenomenon called postpartum PTSD. This disorder is often confused or misdiagnosed as postpartum depression, but the symptoms and treatment options differ greatly. This article offers firsthand accounts of postpartum PTSD suffers and appears to be an attempt to shed light on this currently little-known disorder. 

Quality: 
This article stands out due the candid quotations from PTSD sufferers. Statements from sufferers of the disorder such as this one, “I’d be eating next to my son and holding a fork, and I’d imagine what would happen if I lost control and stabbed him…I felt completely out of control,” bring to light the shocking feelings caused by PTSD (Leeder). While statements like, I had a constant sense of danger around me. But I had no signs of depression. I was overactive—I needed to do things,” suggest the difficulty of getting a diagnosis for this recently identified disorder (Leeder). One could probably imagine how difficult it would be to get help if one’s disorder did not fit commonly known diagnoses such as postpartum depression. 

Issues: 
This article’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The firsthand accounts of postpartum PTSD paint a stark picture, but there is little in the way of professional opinions or scholarly data, only two articles are cited, to tell us how serious or widespread the postpartum PTSD might be or what to do about it. Firsthand accounts of PTSD sufferers and advice from social workers are used to fill in these gaps. Please consider, however, that since the disorder is still in the early stages of recognition, scholarly sources may not have been available to the author. 

Key Words and Phrases:
postpartum, postpartum PTSD, PTSD, hyper arousal, trauma, symptoms, mother, birth

Useful Quotes:
For some moms, their baby’s birth is the beginning of a dark, terrifying journey.

[A post birth trauma sufferer notes] I had a constant sense of danger around me. But I had no signs of depression. I was overactive—I needed to do things” she says…[I] came across a list of symptoms connected to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “I realized I was having almost all of them” 

[The sypotoms of PTSD] include experiencing one or several events that involve the threat of serious injury or death (to themselves or their baby) and subsequent feelings of fear, helplessness or horror. Sufferers may have flashbacks and hallucinations. Many also suffer from what psychologists call “hyper-arousal”—irritability and difficulty sleeping and concentrating. 

Shlomi-Polchek notes, “There are women who avoid subsequent childbirth or vaginal childbirth or—worse—avoid the baby because he reminds them of the trauma.”

Helen Dunn, a postpartum PTSD sufferer, notes, “I’d be eating next to my son and holding a fork, and I’d imagine what would happen if I lost control and stabbed him,” she said. “I felt completely out of control.”

…when you say ‘I was traumatized while giving birth to my child,’ there’s a lot less support.”

Kalina Christoff, a postpartum PTSD sufferer, notes, “The advice I give to women is that the most important thing for them is to get in touch with other survivors of birth trauma who are able to hear, acknowledge and understand your experiences at a visceral level, because many times your closest friends and relatives are unable to do that.”