The rapid identification of new mothers at risk of CB-PTSD could help more women to treat their symptoms.
It has been suggested that the narrative style and language patients use when recounting a traumatic event could provide deep insights into the individual’s mental wellbeing.
The words that a woman uses to describe her birthing story could reflect post-traumatic adjustment before deep psychological analysis.
The new model analyses the narrative and language used in a patient’s birthing story using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify potential markers of CB-PTSD. It currently still requires further improvements to effectively and accurately identify the mental health condition.
At present, a CB-PTSD diagnosis has two steps.
Related Stories
The second step of the diagnosis is the women identified by the questionnaire receiving a structured PTSD interview by a clinician, but this is time-consuming and costly.
This study found that the machine learning model can identify women at risk of developing CB-PTSD in place of the clinician interview.
The 1,295 participants of the study were women who had given birth to a live baby and were at least 18 years old. They completed an anonymous web survey that included a questionnaire and were asked to provide a narrative of their birthing experience in approximately 30 words.
The AI model was believed to be successful at diagnosing women with CB-PTSD because its choices corresponded to women who had high scores on the questionnaire.
What is Childbirth-Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Around one-third of women who have given birth experienced a traumatic delivery and eight million women around the world are affected by full CB-PTSD.
CB-PTSD develops soon after the birthing experience and can result in the child becoming a traumatic reminder for the mother.
The condition creates maternal attachment problems and reduces breastfeeding during an important developmental stage. It may impede early childhood development and cause significant public health costs.
However, current CB-PTSD screening faces some issues because women tend to underreport their symptoms due to shame, stigma, fear of infant separation, and lack of awareness.
