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Research Square
By Scarth B, Dudeney E, Brown N and 1 others.
Abstract Problem: The relationship between traumatic birth experiences and perinatal suicidal ideation and behaviour remains poorly understood.
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Suicide is a leading cause of maternal death, and birth trauma is common and associated with perinatal mental health difficulties. Women’s accounts of how traumatic birth and suicidal behaviour connect are largely absent from the literature.
To explore how women with lived experience of perinatal suicidal behaviour described traumatic birth and its aftermath, how they understood the relationship between the two, and what they identified as harmful, helpful, or preventative in the care they received or did not receive.
Reflexive thematic analysis, within a critical realist orientation, of sixteen semi-structured interviews with women in Australia who had experienced both traumatic birth and perinatal suicidal behaviour, drawn from a larger co-designed family-based study.
Two themes comprising seven subthemes were constructed: the silenced birth and routes into suicidal behaviour. Women described obstetric violence, medical emergency, loss of control, and lasting physical injury. Family members and clinicians often minimised or closed these accounts down by focussing on the healthy baby, and many women struggled for years to name their experiences. Participants attributed their suicidal ideation and behaviour to birth trauma as the final harm added to an already heavy load, and to physical birth injury experienced as a loss of function, role, and imagined future.
Recognising and validating traumatic birth experiences across maternity, mental health, and primary care services is critical for timely support, trauma-informed care planning, and reduced perinatal suicidal behaviour.
This is a preprint: it has not been peer reviewed yet, and its findings may change.
Published in Research Square (preprint). The abstract is shown as published and remains the work of its authors; read the full article at the source.
Prognia lists this article for reference and education. It is not medical advice. Always read the original and follow current guidelines and local protocols before acting on it.
