What are common causes of a ‘traumatic delivery?’

Overworked staff who (unconsciously, for sure) manage in a hurried impersonal manner to make the mother feel as if she has lost all control over the future fate of her body, her baby and the birth. • Delivery problems, including lack of empathy, sensitivity, sympathy to the labouring mother. • Invasive, obstetric dire-emergency procedures (rare life-on-the-line agonising minutes). • The mother’s ‘natural childbirth experience’ has gone horribly wrong — she fears for her life and/or the life of her baby. Mothers can also experience PTSD from intensely stressful traumatic pregnancies, and both they and fathers can experience PTSD when their brand-new baby’s life hangs in the balance, and baby has to be transferred to NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) or SCBU (special care baby unit). Parents can have a desperate, unfulfilled need for explanations.