Disrespect during childbirth and postpartum mental health: a French cohort study

The same year the WHO warned about mistreatment, a social media movement with #paytonuterus brought to light the problematic of obstetrical violence in French speaking countries.A year later, in 2015, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics defined 7 categories of disrespect and abuse during childbirth also known as obstetric violence (1). To allow contextual relevance, the French National Academy of Medicine has focused only on the disrespects committed by the caregivers and has not retained the overall constituents of obstetric violence (2,3). Inadequate support and loss of control in labour are some of the most frequently reported risk factors for childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder (CB-PTSD) (4). Hence the need to explore the associations between disrespect during childbirth and the mental well-being of mothers. We conducted a multicentered cohort study within a French perinatal network and used auto-questionnaires to measure women's report of disrespect during childbirth, CB-PTSD and Postpartum Depression (PPD)