Mothers with post-traumatic stress disorder after traumatic childbirth struggled to survive and experienced nightmares, flashbacks, anger, anxiety, depression, and isolation.

METHODS Women were recruited through Trauma and Birth Stress, a charitable trust in New Zealand founded to support women who had experienced birth trauma and to educate healthcare professionals and the general public about PTSD after childbirth. Women were asked to describe in writing their experiences of PTSD after childbirth in as much detail as they wished. 2 women hand wrote and sent their stories by post; 36 submitted their stories as email attachments. The phenomenological analysis involved reading and rereading participants’ descriptions of PTSD after traumatic birth to describe the essence of the phenomenon, formulating the meanings of important statements pertaining directly to the experiences, and categorising the meanings into theme clusters. 9 participating mothers met with the researcher to validate preliminary findings, and the final results were reviewed on the internet by 4 mothers and 1 father.