The trauma of premature birth for mothers with infants in neonatal high care: The role of dissociation due to traumatic childhood experience

Abstract

Recent studies have identified a history of anxiety as playing a crucial role in the development of trauma responses in mothers of premature neonates. This paper explores this link in more depth, examining how previous relational experience appears to influence mothers' experiences of premature birth and their infants in the context of a neonatal high care ward. Utilizing case study methodology, the narratives of three mothers are analyzed in order to better understand their experiences and their mental states. The trauma of engaging with a premature infant appears to reactivate dissociated self-states associated with childhood experiences of loss and absence for mothers, manifesting in fragmented narratives of their own and their infant's experience.