Here’s an interesting story we found at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website about a Norwegian study of rape survivors and childbirth:
Women who have been raped have much more difficulty in childbirth than their peers who have never suffered sexual abuse or violence, a new study shows.
“The challenging part seems to be in the second stage, when the baby is to descend and the woman should start pushing,” Dr Lotte Halvorsen of the University Hospital of North Norway, who helped conduct the study, told Reuters Health in an email.
“A possible explanation may be that the physical pain when the baby is descending activates flashbacks of the rape, and the resistance to the traumatic experience,” the researcher said.
Based on the findings, she adds, doctors, midwives and nurses helping women in labour and delivery need to know if that woman has a history of rape, so that they can assist her during labour without re-traumatising her. “A previous rape is a shameful, and therefore often a silent and unprocessed, negative experience in life that women do not bring up themselves,” she added.
