40% of Women Describe Their Birth as Traumatic. Most Are Never Asked About It.
By Jen Crawford | Doula Trainer, Doula, Life & Business Coach
A 2026 study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica found that 40% of women describe their birth as at least moderately traumatic. 20.1% met the clinical criteria for a traumatic birth experience. 5.9% went on to develop childbirth-related PTSD.
That is 1 in 17 women.
And most of them are never asked how they feel about what happened.
I have been working in birth for a long time. I have sat with women in NICU, in postnatal wards, in their living rooms weeks after coming home. I have heard the same thing again and again: nobody asked. The baby was healthy. Everyone moved on. And she was left carrying something she did not have words for yet.
This post is for her.
What Is Birth Trauma?
Birth trauma is not only about emergency situations. It is not reserved for the most dramatic births. It includes any experience where a woman or birthing person felt out of control, unheard, frightened or violated during their birth — even when everything went medically well.
This is important. A birth can be medically uncomplicated and still be traumatic. The emotional experience of birth matters as much as the clinical outcome. When we only measure success by healthy baby and healthy mother, we miss what is happening inside.
Birth trauma can look like:
Flashbacks to the birth — intrusive, unwanted memories
Avoidance of anything that reminds you of it
Fear of becoming pregnant again
Difficulty bonding with your baby
Feeling numb, disconnected or on constant high alert
Nightmares or sleep disturbance
Anxiety or hypervigilance in medical settings
Many women carry this silently. Many are told they should just be grateful. I want to say clearly: gratitude and trauma can coexist. Both are real. Both deserve space.
What the Research Tells Us
The INTERSECT study — one of the most comprehensive international studies on birth trauma to date, drawing on data from 11,302 women across 31 countries — identified the factors most strongly associated with traumatic birth and childbirth-related PTSD.
They include:
A negative subjective birth experience
Assisted vaginal birth or emergency caesarean birth
Lack of continuous support during labour
No skin-to-skin contact after birth
Previous trauma or PTSD history
Antenatal depression or fear of childbirth
Complications during birth
Look at that list carefully. Most of those factors are shaped by the care a woman receives and the environment she births in. They are not inevitable. They are not personal failings. They are, in large part, system failures.
(Webb et al., Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 2026; INTERSECT Study, 2024)
What Ireland Is Getting Wrong
Ireland has no national system for routine screening of birth trauma or postnatal PTSD.
The standard six-week postnatal check does not include a trauma screen. Many women are discharged from maternity care without a single person asking how they feel about what happened to them during their birth.
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, used in many postnatal settings, screens for depression but is not designed to identify birth trauma or PTSD symptoms. Women can score below the threshold and still be quietly struggling.
A postnatal appointment that includes the question "How do you feel about how your birth went?" is not asking for much. For some women, it would be the first time anyone has asked. For some, it would change everything.
What Actually Helps
If you are carrying something from your birth, there are things that genuinely help.
Birth debrief: Many maternity units offer birth debrief appointments, where you can go through what happened with a midwife or obstetrician. This is not available everywhere and is not always well-publicised, but it is worth asking for. It can be enormously helpful to understand the sequence of events and to have your questions answered.
Trauma-focused therapy: NICE guidelines recommend trauma-focused CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) for PTSD, including childbirth-related PTSD. These are evidence based approaches and they work. Your GP can refer you.
Peer support: Connecting with others who understand is powerful. The Birth Trauma Association in the UK offers peer support and resources. In Ireland, Nurture Health is a valuable resource for perinatal mental health support.
Being listened to: Sometimes the most important thing is a safe space to say what happened without being told it could have been worse, or that you should be grateful. A doula, a counsellor, a trusted friend who will not rush you — all of these matter.
You do not have to carry this alone.
For Care Providers Reading This
Asking "How do you feel about how your birth went?" takes thirty seconds.
For some women, it is the first time anyone has asked. For some women, that question opens a door that has been closed since the moment they came home from hospital.
Routine trauma screening in the postnatal period is evidence based. The tools exist. The training exists. What is needed is the will to make it standard — not an optional extra in units that have time, but a consistent part of postnatal care everywhere.
Every care provider who creates space for a woman to say "that was hard" is doing something that matters. Something that changes outcomes. Something the research supports.
Working with Families After a Difficult Birth
Understanding birth trauma, how to hold space after a difficult birth, and how to support families in the weeks and months that follow is central to the work I teach in my Doula Training and CPD Days.
A doula who knows how to sit with this — without rushing to fix it, without minimising it, without making it about them — changes the postnatal experience for that family.
If you are a birth or postnatal professional who wants to feel more confident supporting families through this, I would love to work with you.
If you are a parent who is carrying something from your birth experience and would like support, I offer 1:1 Pregnancy and Parenting Coaching.
You can find out more at jen-crawford.com.
Jen Crawford is a Doula Trainer, Doula, and Life & Business Coach based in Ireland. She was the co-founder of DoulaCare Ireland, Ireland's first national doula agency.
@jen_crawford_doula_wisdom | jen-crawford.com
