A systematic review of nonpharmacological interventions to improve trauma symptoms and mother-infant bonding for women who experience birth trauma.
Sorcha Odgers, Helen Bourke-Taylor, Monica Leo and 2 others
PMID 42153422WHAT IT FOUND
Of four non-drug treatments tested for women with birth trauma, only face-to-face counselling reduced trauma symptom severity and improved mother-baby bonding.
EMDR showed benefit in one of two trials. Self-help materials and compassion-focused therapy showed no effect.
Key findings
01Only six studies met the inclusion criteria, and no occupation-based intervention trials were found in the literature.
02Supportive counselling was the only intervention found to reduce the severity of trauma symptoms and improve the mother-infant bond, though it did not prevent PTSD incidence.
03EMDR was more effective than usual care for reducing birth trauma symptoms in one study, but showed no statistically significant change in the other.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only six studies met criteria, making it impossible to draw firm conclusions about any single intervention Interventions, outcome measures, and follow-up timeframes varied widely across studies, preventing a meta-analysis Blinding was weak in all but one of the included studies Some studies had very small samples (as few as 20 participants), limiting the reliability of their findings Two of the CFT studies recruited women up to 24 months postpartum rather than specifically screening for birth trauma, diluting the trauma-specific signal No occupation-based intervention trials were found, so the review cannot speak to the specific interventions OTs might deliver The low yield of included studies may reflect a genuinely emerging field rather than a comprehensive picture of available evidence
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest were declared. The work was funded by an Australian Research Stipend (RTP). All authors are mothers; the first three are occupational therapists and the last has training in psychology and statistics.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that EMDR is an established treatment for birth trauma. One trial found a significant benefit while the other found no statistically significant change, and the overall evidence base is too small and inconsistent to support routine use of any single intervention. Likewise, the counselling finding rests on a single study, and both trauma symptoms and mother-infant bonding improved in control groups over time, so the true treatment effect may be smaller than it appears.