Psychological Birth Trauma
Transitioning to motherhood is an enor mous life change, especially for an adolescent. At immediate postpartum a woman may be in a vulnerable state due to physical exhaustion, lack of food, social isolation, depressive symptoms, or PBT (psychologi- cal birth trauma). As she begins to process the event in early postpartum, symptoms suggestive of an acute stress reaction may appear, such as looking dazed or appearing overactive or agitated, withdrawn, anx- ious, or disoriented (Church & Scanlan, 2002). Additionally, she may verbally ap- praise her birth as traumatic. Other symp toms of re-experiencing the event, avoid- ance and numbing, and arousal, if persisting for at least 1 month with significant impair- ment to one's life, may support a clinical diagnosis of PTSD (Ayers, 2004). Women experiencing a traumatic stress response demonstrate re-experiencing and avoid ance, particularly in the first 6 weeks, but without full diagnostic criteria for PTSD.