This formal diagnosis helped trauma-exposed individuals become more open to disclosing their mental health distress. The PTSD diagnosis was introduced in the 1980s in response to the accusation that people affected by trauma (for example, US veterans returning from the Vietnam War) were presenting with hysterical-like symptoms of impairment. PTSD is included in the widely used US (DSM-5) 2 and international ( ICD-11) classifications of mental disorders. This warrants improvement in maternal care.Įxposure to an event that entails actual threat to one’s own life or that of another can lead to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 2. Their estimated prevalence worldwide is 2.45% and 1.68%, respectively 1, with an increasing trend in SMM rates. These conditions carry serious short-term and long-term consequences for women, families and society. A minority experience severe maternal morbidity (SMM), life-threatening complications that can result in death or a maternal ‘near miss’ - that is, nearly escaping death. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the 5 th edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 1).PTSD was included in a new category in DSM-5, Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.
Although this is commonly viewed as a uniformly happy event, a significant portion of women undergo complicated and highly stressful labor and delivery. More than 140 million women give birth each year worldwide.