Mental Health and Birth
In this section, we present what women said about how mental health can affect the birth experience and how certain birth experiences might have contributed to mental health challenges after birth. Most of the women we spoke to told us about their birthing experience – which ranged from smooth, uncomplicated deliveries with good support to traumatic experiences where the mother or baby’s life was in danger. Not everyone who had a traumatic birth described having mental health problems because of the experience, and not everyone who had a ‘picture perfect’ birth felt mentally well afterward. In addition to the impact of the birth itself, some people mentioned feeling stressed because of their fear of hospitals, childbirth or seeing blood. Others spoke about challenging or stressful situations during pregnancy which they believed contributed to their mental health struggles after giving birth.
Even though this topic about the birth itself wasn’t the main focus of our interviews, we gathered valuable insights from the people we spoke to and felt important to include their experiences here.
Anxieties Related to Giving Birth
Several people shared that the anxieties they experienced related to giving birth contributed to their mental health challenges. These anxieties included fears about hospitals, needles, blood and/or the delivery process itself.
Kalli felt dissociated during delivery due to her fear of blood and struggled when she didn't feel reassured after birth.
Transcript
I really think that after my child’s birth, like, literally, like, as, like, once he came out, I didn’t feel that sensation of, like, “ah, my baby!” Like, that excitement. And I think because so much was happening while I was giving birth and, like I said, I was also […]
Before the delivery, Louise worried about having panic attacks because of her fears related to the hospital, needles and other concerns.
Transcript
C’est ça! (rire) C’est ça! Mais l’accouchement, je veux dire, ça a été assez intense. (rire) Intervieweuse: Mais vous n’avez pas comme relié, disons, cette idée d’expérience pendant l’accouchement avec les troubles de panique? Il n’y avait pas eu comme un lien ou ça n’a pas réveillé de… C’est certain que […]
Experiencing Mental Health Challenges Soon After Birth
Several people had a positive birthing experience but noticed they didn’t feel well emotionally soon after their baby was born.
After a 'picture perfect' pregnancy, delivery and feeding experience, Candace noticed that something was 'going on' with her.
Transcript
I had probably one of the best pregnancies you could ask for. [Laughs]. I had the standard nausea at the beginning. I wasn’t very large in my pregnancy, no health complications. I was healthy. My daughter was healthy. I did carry her until 41 and six days, though, so I […]
After a good birth experience, Hope didn't feel the explosion of phenomenal joy she had expected.
Written testimony
And so, I gave birth, and as I was giving birth, last Halloween actually, after trick or treating, I was like – I’m pretty knowledgeable about birth. And especially natural birth and physiological birth, and I had you know, given birth naturally with my first, I trained as a doula, attended a bunch of births and I’m a huge reader on birth and all that. So, I have these images of women standing up with like basically their pelvis, you know, the baby coming pout and their vulva opening and stuff like this.
I was hanging off of my husband’s neck, and [my daughter] was basically coming out, I didn’t even really, I didn’t have to push her, there was no tearing nothing, but I felt outside of my body. I felt I was looking at my body opening up, I felt I was outside looking, and that was weird. And then as soon as I had given birth, thank goodness, you know, like I had my doula who was like, just chill out, you know, like just you know, it was dark and your instinct is to grab your baby sometimes. But is that because you actually want to, or is that because you feel like you have to, you know. And so, I just paused and just try to like process the fact that I just had a baby here, and this baby is mine. And I didn’t feel the attachment, I did not feel the explosion of phenomenal joy as I did with my first baby, and it scared me, really it scared me, but I was okay. And I knew what the healthy behaviours are to promote bonding and I knew what the baby needed and all that and what I needed.
So you know, the evening continued and a lot of skin to skin and latching on and all of this, but I had, that night after I gave birth, probably two three hours after I gave birth, I had my first intrusive thought.
Some people felt that experiencing stressful situations during their pregnancy may have played a role in the mental health challenges they faced after giving birth.
Susan believes that the stress from legal issues at work may have caused high blood pressure and an early birth, which further affected her mental health.
Transcript
Interviwer: And the delivery situation that you described that once you delivered that everything would be okay again. Was there anything in the delivery related to your mental health? Yeah. I think so. When I was, so I had her I think it was maybe three weeks early and I […]
After losing a close friend just five days before giving birth, coupled with a traumatic birth experience, Julie was not doing well.
Transcript
So there was very much pressuring. And I read the studies and I saw, like, the absolute versus relative risk. Like, I was looking at, like, OK, do they – you know, is there support for an older mum to be induced? And yeah. There is some evidence to suggest […]
Several people mentioned having mental health problems before or during pregnancy and hoped that these issues would go away once the baby was born.
During pregnancy, Karmin believed her symptoms would go away after delivery.
Transcript
I thought maybe those kind of feelings and the symptoms of that and everything would go away when I was safe in my arms, but when I had her, I had, like, a pretty traumatic birth and my – I had a bad infection and my daughter had jaundice and […]
Challenging and Traumatic Birth Experiences and Mental Health
Women prepared for the birth of their baby in different ways. Several women created a birth plan and had ideas about how they hoped their delivery would go. Christine, on the other hand, shared that when the doctor asked if she had a birth plan, she replied “I don’t know. What do you think? I’m not the expert; you tell me my birth plan.” Many women had to adjust their plans and wishes when things didn’t go as expected during the delivery. Some had a traumatic birth experience or had to undergo medical procedures. Others felt that the care they received didn’t meet their needs, leading to frustration, feeling of loneliness, or missing important moments with their baby after birth.
Some women described feeling they had failed by not being able to deliver the baby in a ‘perfect’ way. Tara described how she felt “inadequate as a woman” when the doctor described her birth experience as challenging as she had the believed that women’s bodies are made to give birth easily.
Rather than experiencing the birth as an empowering moment, Emma felt like a failure.
Transcript
And then it just hit me one day, and I just had an anxiety attack. And then I was like, whoa, I don’t think I’m as good as I thought I was. And this pregnancy was difficult. I was tired, and then I started to feel that shift from one […]
Christine wished she had considered the emotional aspects as well, rather than the medical standpoint alone.
Transcript
Yeah, you know, I thought of it all from a purely medical standpoint, because I am just a big, I mean, I’m a big believer in science and medicine, and I still am. But I wish I had thought more about the emotional side of things. I just assumed I’d […]
In the following sections, you can read about how women coped with these challenges, where they found help, and for some, how they continue to struggle to seek support.