The scale of the underlying problem is considerable. In the United Kingdom, approximately one in 20 women develop post-traumatic stress disorder following childbirth, a condition that can flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance behaviours and severe anxiety to persist for months or years after delivery. Many more women describe their birthing experience as traumatic even when they do not meet full diagnostic criteria, and recent research has shown that postnatal PTSD remains substantially underdiagnosed across the UK, meaning many affected women never receive formal recognition or treatment for their suffering. The new economic analysis adds a powerful financial dimension to this clinical picture, demonstrating that the hidden burden of birth trauma translates directly into increased demand on health services and, by extension, on the public purse, strengthening the case for earlier identification and intervention.

The report was authored by the MAP Alliance research team and represents the first published attempt to estimate some of the economic costs associated with PTSD following childbirth in the UK, with a primary focus on healthcare use among affected women. Its evidence base is unusually robust for this field: the analysis draws on a programme of perinatal mental health research that tracked more than 2,000 women in England and Scotland from pregnancy through to two years after birth, repeatedly assessing their mental health, their use of health services and their occupational outcomes. Crucially, the postnatal assessments captured not only PTSD arising from childbirth itself but also PTSD stemming from other traumatic experiences, allowing the researchers to distinguish between trauma related specifically to the birth and trauma from other sources. The report also incorporates findings from a separate survey conducted by the Birth Trauma Association documenting women’s personal accounts of birth trauma and its effects on their lives.

The key findings are stark. Healthcare and support service costs for women with childbirth-related PTSD were 2.5 times higher than for women without PTSD during the six to twelve months after birth. Even women with low or moderate PTSD symptoms, including those reporting only one or two symptoms, showed increased healthcare service costs compared with women without PTSD, demonstrating that the economic impact of birth trauma begins well below the diagnostic threshold. Employment outcomes were also affected: by twelve months postpartum, only 53 percent of women with PTSD had returned to work, compared with 68 percent of women without symptoms, pointing to longer-term economic and employment consequences that extend far beyond the health service. Although women with PTSD were more likely to be referred to mental health support services, more than half received no referral at all, exposing serious gaps in access to appropriate care. Women whose PTSD stemmed from traumatic birth also had slightly higher healthcare costs than those with PTSD arising from other traumas, suggesting greater healthcare needs in this group.

The findings arrive against the backdrop of mounting concern about maternity safety and accountability. The 2024 APPG Birth Trauma Inquiry, co-chaired by Rosie Duffield MP, highlighted the significant impact of birth trauma on women and families and explicitly called for research evidence on the public health and wider societal costs of postpartum PTSD. That call has now been answered with hard numbers. The wider medico-legal context is equally sobering: maternity-related clinical claims against the NHS in 2024-25 cost £3.5 billion, representing 53 percent of all clinical claims by value received in that year. While the new report deliberately restricted its scope to healthcare use, the researchers acknowledge that substantial additional costs fall outside its estimates, including lost productivity, informal care, family breakdown and the long-term effects on children, meaning the true economic burden is likely to be considerably larger than the figures presented.

Professor Susan Ayers, co-author of the report and Professor of Maternal and Child Health at City St George’s, University of London, emphasised the breadth of harm that PTSD symptoms impose on families in the postpartum period, whether the trauma originates in a difficult birth or in other adverse experiences. She noted that many of these outcomes carry direct cost implications for the public purse, and that the research, which focused specifically on healthcare service use, found that health service costs alone for women with PTSD and their babies are over double those of women without PTSD within the first two years after birth, and possibly beyond. Ayers warned that unless action is taken to address birth trauma and PTSD, the annual cost of health service use by women and their babies will remain high, and argued that preventing traumatic births alongside implementing routine screening and treatment for PTSD would both benefit women and families and begin to bring these costs down.

The report’s publication was greeted with strong language from patient advocates. Dr Kim Thomas, Chief Executive of the Birth Trauma Association, said the study shows for the first time the scale of the financial cost of birth trauma to the NHS. She explained that the charity has long been aware that women affected by traumatic birth need far more care in the months and sometimes years following birth, whether in the form of counselling, physiotherapy or surgery. Describing the finding that traumatised women represent a cost to the NHS two-and-a-half times greater than other women in the postnatal period as a wake-up call to policymakers, Thomas urged the government to commission research into the wider costs to the economy when women are lost to the job market or their families break up as a consequence of birth trauma.

In Parliament, the report’s launch was framed as the culmination of years of campaigning. Rt Hon Rosie Duffield MP, Chair of the APPG on Birth Trauma, described it as a landmark report believed to be the first UK research into the economic cost of birth trauma and postpartum PTSD, building directly on the APPG’s 2024 Birth Trauma Inquiry, which she co-chaired and which highlighted the urgent need for research into the wider economic impact of birth trauma. She noted that the APPG has heard compelling evidence of the significant costs involved, from direct pressures on the NHS to lasting financial consequences for families, and welcomed the fact that Professor Ayers secured funding to undertake the work.

Turning evidence into policy, the researchers set out a clear set of recommendations. They call for routine screening and interventions for PTSD during pregnancy and after childbirth, alongside increased access to specialist perinatal mental health support for women experiencing symptoms. They emphasise that preventing traumatic births in the first place has the potential to save the NHS a substantial amount of money while improving the wellbeing of women and families. Workforce training is also highlighted as essential, to raise awareness of perinatal trauma and PTSD, embed trauma-informed principles of care, and help clinicians identify and support women at risk. Finally, the authors stress that further research is needed to ensure screening tools, treatments and trauma-informed care pathways are effective and evidence based, so that a problem long invisible in economic terms can finally be met with services equal to its scale.

Subject of Research: The economic impact of childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder on NHS healthcare use in the UK.

Article Title: New report first to outline economic impact of childbirth-related PTSD in the UK

Article References: New report first to outline economic impact of childbirth-related PTSD in the UK. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: birth trauma, postnatal PTSD, childbirth-related PTSD, NHS costs, perinatal mental health, maternity care, economic impact, postpartum health, screening, trauma-informed care, women's health, health economics