The transition to motherhood is characterized by hormonal fluctuations, sleep deprivation, and adjustments to a new role, potentially impacting a woman’s mental well-being. Postpartum mood disorders, including postpartum depression (PPD), anxiety, and difficulties in perceived child-mother bond are highly associated with birth-related PTSD. Factors such as pre-existing maternal psychiatric problems, a negative birth experience, and lack of social support have been consistently reported as commonly occurring causes of postnatal PTSD.
Experiencing or witnessing traumatic events during or after childbirth can cause postnatal PTSD. Examples might include a difficult labor with a difficult labor. The country is facing a maternal health crisis, with Black women being disproportionately impacted, experiencing high rates of birth trauma and obstetric injury. Following the birth of their baby, the attention of women may shift from their expectations of birth to coping with a newborn and the stressors of motherhood.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following childbirth is a significant mental health risk for women globally, but it remains a neglected cause. This review delves into the crucial yet often underexplored realm of postpartum mood disorders, aiming to illuminate their significance and foster understanding. The difficulties in mother-infant bond and the postpartum depression were highly associated with the total score of PTSD-FC symptoms for mothers.
For some women, the psychological toll of childbirth leads to a form of PTSD, distinct from postpartum depression, that follows them into new motherhood. Symptoms of PTSD, such as flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance, can disrupt a mother’s ability to cope with the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.
📹 8 Family Causes of PTSD | Psychotherapy Crash Course
Trauma #Familyptsd #intergenerationaltrauma Powerful personalities and behaviors in your family can truly impact how you feel, …
Can parenting trigger PTSD?
Parenting can lead to mild, moderate, or severe forms of PTSD, such as severe colic in a baby, sleep deprivation, and the activation of “flight or fight” syndrome. A mother experienced PTSD symptoms after years of caring for babies, newborns, and toddlers. The anxiety and fixation she felt when asked to babysit her young children caused her to panic again. PTSD can take many forms, including returning home from war zones or experiencing a single shocking event or prolonged exposure to something that induces the flight-or-fight syndrome.
The body’s inability to process the difference between nonthreatening events and physical threats can result in PTSD. The National Institute of Mental Health defines PTSD as a disorder that can occur after any shocking, scary, or dangerous event, either after a single shocking event or after prolonged exposure to something that induces the flight-or-fight syndrome.
Can childbirth cause PTSD?
Birth-related PTSD affects around 17 of postpartum parents, with many others experiencing symptoms that do not meet the clinical criteria for PTSD. The United States is a persistent outlier with poor maternal and infant health outcomes, with Black women being disproportionately affected. They experience high rates of birth trauma and obstetric injury, and are at a higher risk of developing postpartum depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders.
Black women are more likely to be underdiagnosed than white women and face more systemic and social barriers to accessing maternal mental health care. To better support postpartum patients with birth-related PTSD, frontline providers should be informed about the impact of birth trauma and PTSD after birth, screen frequently, and have appropriate treatment and referral resources available. However, many frontline providers lack appropriate maternal mental health referral resources, which is compounded by the current shortage of mental health providers.
Can you have PTSD from motherhood?
Postpartum PTSD is a significant mental health condition that affects both the mother and the child. It can cause anxiety, depression, isolation, and difficulties bonding with the baby. For the mother, it can lead to poor nutrition due to the mother’s inability to breastfeed. This can result in poor nutrition for the child, as the mother struggles to produce milk, latch the baby onto the breast, and maintain an adequate milk supply. Postpartum PTSD can also cause depression and anxiety, hindering the mother’s ability to effectively parent and form secure attachment relationships with the child.
Despite progress, postpartum PTSD is often undiagnosed and untreated, with healthcare professionals lacking the necessary training. This results in many women being left without the support they need, as most psychological and emotional therapy offered by child health care agencies does not address postpartum PTSD. Many people are unaware of the existence of this illness, forcing them to suffer alone.
To address this issue, childbirth delivery services must recognize and prioritize postpartum PTSD as a serious mental health condition, considering the psychological and emotional needs of mothers suffering from it. Additionally, many women experience apprehension when considering a subsequent pregnancy, particularly if their prior birth or postpartum recovery was complicated. This fear can result from factors such as feeling overwhelmed, unable to cope with another pregnancy, potential complications, physical and emotional toll, and financial burden.
Can you get PTSD from bad parenting?
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychological disorder characterized by persistent, recurring, and accumulative experiences resulting from traumatic experiences. It is often caused by experiences such as war, violence, and physical abuse, but it can also be triggered by factors such as alcoholic parenting, neglect, emotional bullying, or poor parenting. Complex trauma, also known as C-PTSD, is a type of traumatic experience that occurs repeatedly and accumulates over time.
Parents who are verbally abusive, neglectful, or have addictions may cause trauma in their children through their behavior. Complex trauma can lead to problems with relationships, as feelings of abandonment may be triggered by certain behavior. Adults with complex trauma often struggle with similar feelings as children and may fear being neglected or harmed by their partners due to their traumatic past.
Can you have PTSD from when you were a baby?
Babies may remember traumatic memories from a young age, potentially resurfacing when triggered later in life. This is due to the disruption of normal brain development during infancy or early childhood, which can be triggered by neurotransmitters released when people experience fear or anxiety. These chemicals can alter synapses and neural pathways, leading to long-term behavioral changes, emotional disturbances, and physical symptoms.
Although it is difficult to determine if a child remembers what happened during a traumatic event, evidence suggests that potential memories are still present in some form, and children and teenagers may still experience the effects of trauma on their developing brains at any age.
📹 Complex PTSD affects the brain long-term and can affect your closest relationships
Unresolved trauma from childhood can have permanent effects on adulthood, but help is available to cure the symptoms and stop …
Everything mention pretty much sums up “American Culture” to the teeth! This especially goes for racial issues involving those of us with ties or a family background of enslaved African and otherwise indigenous ancestry! So many things came up for me with each point that you made, this response could be one of my most epic in writing. What you said also very much supports things often spoken about by Black folks whom are quite popular on YouTube and various other social media outlets. I really hope that folks who follow these people watch and listen and encourage these others to view this article entry if any of the fantastic articles that you’ve produced. 💖✊🏽
One of the things I just LOVE about your new article format is the chapter bookmarks, or whatever you call them. It makes it SO EASY to go back. I like to reflect on things. Sometimes that takes awhile. I appreciate being able to go back and be able to find a topic with the touch of a finger. So grateful for that! Thank you.
Thank you Tamara, my mother would always put me down and tell me that I was no good. This lasted from when I was very young all the way through to when she was on her deathbed. All through school I was bullied. I don’t know whether I had PTSD then, but I now know that I couldn’t attach to anyone. I was scared of relationships because I always got hurt. Thinking that I was no good. As a result I chose the wrong person to marry and she really hurt me. After we separated I was diagnosed with PTSD. That was three years ago. I have got myself to a point looking back on my life and trying to make sense of it. This article was informative and I look forward to learning more in future articles. Thank you very much.
Great article! I feel that I have so much to unpack, but not sure of what all I need to unpack after perusal/listening. I see and have seen a great deal of this in people I’ve been and still involved with. I think that I can truly relate with with much of this. However, several people with him I’ve become very close with seem to project quite a bit. It may be time to “clean house” yet again. As a none confrontational type of person in my personal relationships, I’m going to have to create a well working plan.
So what about offering financial help and then holding it over your head. They refuse to let you pay it back, continue to offer help, and then guilt manipulate later not to get something from you but to try to motivate you to do better. Then when guilt and anxiety paralysis sets in, they tell you how ungrateful you are because you’re not motivated by their attempts to guilt you
This diagnose is terrible…I got more than one trauma but what really affected me was that I was in a abusive relationship. Then all my trust in people fell apart…Me and my bf broke up today. He was loving me but got sick from me. I go to EMDR….but still…I cant trust anybody…got these paranoid episodes to and re-living…Feels like a death sentence…Im 31 years old. All I want in life is a family but I am not well enough.
I’m 24 and have Complex PTSD. I struggle with sleeping, have a substance abuse problem, and sometimes I wake up shaking all over. I could stare off into the distance all day if it were appropriate. I wanna isolate all day but I don’t eat enough. when in dangerous situations I’m numb. but the worst part? I feel like I never really belong, and nobody could really understand. Turns out – they can.
I suffer from CPTSD. I am 67 years old. For many years I was misdiagnosed and still am. A specialist put me in antidepressants because he felt that I am suffering from depression. All too often CPTSD is misdiagnosed. Throughout the years I have had 3 marriages. Two of which the CPTSD affected my marriage. There’s more to it with my third marriage. My 3rd husband also suffers from CPTSD. But he doesn’t wish to get help. He says that I am the problem, not him.😢
So ehats the difference between CPTSD and regular PTSD those symptoms they mentioned are the same ones in PTSD, and they say CPTSD is more common than you think and they give the statistic 61% of Americans have experienced trauma in their life, just because you experience trauma that doesnt necessarily mean you have PTSD.
so cptsd is not simply childhood, but an in-general long term traumatic event. think ptsd is your home catching on fire one day while cptsd is being in a war zone where your home is set on fire every day for multiple months. I have cptsd due to a prolonged abusive relationship, as do many with an abusive relationship. Language is key and simply putting it to childhood, though it can manifest there, denies others who experience it later in life. I can attest as my family, including me, suffer ptsd from my brother being killed by a car, but only I suffer cptsd from my abusive relationship.
You do sufferers a disservice by glossing over the critical difference between CPTSD and PTSD; PTSD sufferers had sudden traumas, both mental and physical, but CPTSD results from prolonged and repeated abuse over a long period of time, usually during the first 15 years of life. I believe that created an inaccurate and misleading impression on viewers on the causes and treatment of the two disorders.
How about children of parents who suffer with PTSD/CPTSD? Now that shunning parents is common, the chance of resolve and healing is unlikely for most. I pity those babies who are born to judgmental people who shunned their own parents. Because those kids will also shun their parents the same painful way their parents treated their imperfect struggling parents. Too many kids don’t or won’t know their grandparents because of so much judgment over generations of human sin that a new generation thinks someone needs to pay for. Their forgiveness is discriminating and it makes the CPTSD that much more sever. Not only does a person grow up being punished by a damaged parent, they also have to go through life not being loved by their own children. It’s absolutely twisted and soul crushing.
Decades ago the two BIG THINGS, in psychology were anger management and instantaneous counselling for those witnessing, or experiencing, shock events: as in a children dying at school on a classroom fire (just an example). The need to express anger was ignored. It just wasn’t recognised as necessary for robust health. And as to trauma counselling immediately after a traumatic event?, it ignores the fact of denial being the first stage of grief. And that denial protects the person experiencing the denial – from themsleves re a possible negative knee jerk reaction. So stop meddling with nature’s way of handling grief and trauma. It will sort itself out. What had to get removed out of the way is our modern day – others know best – mindsets. They don’t. You do.
Its pure hell. This trauma is caused by ongoing abuse,not by one trauma. One trauma is regular PTSD. I wish i only had 1 trauma. It was ongoing and many. And being brought up in a f up way set me up to be in bad relationships and more trauma. Even though I dont date, i was targeted by my neighbor and threatened ( threatened my 2 ponies too) this set me up for 2 weeks no sleep plus I spent 2k on cameras,self defense and a property survey. To say im piseed. Is an understatement. These psychopaths call me a whore,stare endlessly and started a smear campaign anong other neighbors.
Sadly I have ptsd and bipolar disorder . It’s very very sad. I got PTSD because of abusive domestic violence. Sadly there is no cure only treatments. Even with treatment you tend to forget a lot of things. You know . Might have a high risk of dementia going into your early 50s I read . I hope I don’t . Sadly . Even when when we feel anxiety it’s still a challenge. I have restore to relaxed threapy and treatment.
I don’t feel guilty I was a child, I was 11 years old!I untill I ran away. I was terrified of him at times and then act different when people were around. When I was 19 I found out my brother and sister were also raped, fInally spoke. I’ve taken him to court an up I fought back brother but my sister couldnt face it!! But now we are adults we can fight back! Im not where I want to be but I’m working on it! Til we have the justice we deserve.!!! And We are the strong ones!
She defs did not give an accurate description of c-PTSD, she def misunderstood the “c” standing for childhood. It does not stand for childhood it stands for complex PTSD meaning that you have post traumatic stress disorder from multiple events of trauma in your life as opposed to regular PTSD that is from one singular event… love how she’s talking about this like she’s a doctor and knows about it. Whoever wrote this for the teleprompter needs to re-Google what c-PTSD means…
“All forms of violence are a quest for identity. When you live out in the frontier you behave no identity, therfore you get very tough. You have to prove that you are somebody, and so you become very violent. And so, identity is always accompanied by violence. This, ah, seems paradoxical to you? Ordinary people find the need for violence as they loose their identities. So it is only the threat to people’s identity that make them violent… they are determined to make it somehow; to get coverage; to get noticed.” (Violence As Quest For Identity, Marshall McLuhan, TVO, Canada, 1977)
Mine came from being a child living through war. I was also a sickly child, i remember my tonsil being removed in a hospital being bombed and since they didn’t have enough medicines they held me down and performed the surgery. To the day I can’t go to dentist without having anxiety attacks. Fireworks make me feel like danger is close and i get sensations on my body like worms are crawling on my skin. I dont like lights, when I’m home alone i dont have on any at night, when i go to the bathroom it has to be the lowest setting possible. My sisters would laugh at me when i come over and forget to screw back in their bulbs.
Ive taught my kids how to take care of their own needs so that if something happens to me they can care for themselves no matter where they end up 😭… they know how to wash their own clothes, cook food in the microwave, clean and prepare their own clothes, even how to problem solve logically… Whole time we have a happy home and we do things together. But I always have that “feeling”… I’m so tired of living like this….
Mental illness is a disease to once life. It ruins the life of many including mine but I recently started microdosing and using psilocybin coupled with therapy. It has helped opened my emotions up as it’s something I’ve had troubles with,it also helped with my mental illness. So look up the handle for sure recommendations and psyched products. Will guide you through the process and has nice products.
So this is the latest trend that everyone is claiming to have. I can’t look anywhere anymore without seeing someone claiming to have C-PTSD. Celebrities, musicians, random people on the internet. This is nothing but a trend. Just like it’s been trendy for years now for people to say they have depression, anxiety, etc. I guess that wasn’t interesting enough anymore, so now they had to invent something new for everyone to say they have. Just sickening.
So if these are the results then why the fuck did any of you blame me for how I am and if it was a set up then what was the purpose of it . ? I don’t see any positive effects of trauma and u already know that. It affected my relationship my parenting my self confidence and self growth and also my physical and emotional health almost every part of my life. I couldn’t enjoy my 20s I was self destructive and couldn’t live in the present. I was bleeding on those who never hurt me and I was hurting those who never deserved it . I was self sabotaging my self and hurting everyone around me . I was negative and didn’t believe I could possibly achieve anything or worthy of love . I destroyed myself with substance abuse just to numb my pain I was suffering too much. I didn’t know how to deal with it . I wanted to escape the prison of my anxiety and still until today I’m not fully recovered yet. I have been in fight or flight mode . I know you are one of them and you are not in prison. I’m trying to fix myself but It’s not easy. It takes a long time to heal and recover. You hurt me without any reason and then left me alone. You knew I was still a young and immature and took advantage of it .It’s been 10 years I’m recovering slowly but you left a life long scar in me . But most of all you have destroyed your daughter’s childhood. Anyway wish you all the best in your life.
This was hard to watch. It’s painful how minimal resources and educational material are for this. There wasn’t even a correct definition of Complex PTSD and trauma as a whole was quickly diminished to something almost common. Then immediately jumped to the way it’s passed on. Such a mess of ideas and this biggest issue is audience and connotation etc. it’s abc thou
I have flashbacks but I don’t really remember much as am growing the memories are fading basically I can’t even remember the house we should to live In but I am taking it out on my relationship I found the best boyfriend I have a child I know for a fact he is my soulmate but boy am I fucking it up I need help or a way for to fix it because I can’t loose this man not in this lifetime so please help me out
I don’t know how to begin.I was told that I have cptsd before it was in the medical books books in England. I didn’t find out my birth name until I was in my late 40’s and now I have changed it back so I’m not related in anyway to the dirty scum that adopted me. I was neglected and passed around this familys relatives. A few years ago I was referred for cbt which was a joke the psychologist pushed and pushed me too far,the psychiatrist who diagnosed me wrote in it about the country where I came from this abuse happened in England. He wrote about my birth mother, it was the adoptive parents and their family and members. My birth mother put trust into the English gov for my safety wellbeing and safety and they let her down. I have now locked up my trust for any so called professionals. Buailteoir feola the lot of them