Written Exposure Therapy for Childbirth-related Post-Traumatic Stress

Childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder (CB-PTSD) affects approximately one in twenty women after any given childbirth. Postpartum women are faced with unique barriers to accessing and engaging in evidence-based treatment for PTSD. Aside from avoidance, limited time and financial and logistical barriers regarding childcare can make it difficult to engage in long-term therapy or travel to frequent in-person visits. Therefore, postpartum individuals may find a brief telehealth-based intervention, Written Exposure Therapy, to be highly appealing and well-aligned with the demands of postpartum parenting. Written exposure therapy (WET) is a highly protocolized evidence-based brief psychotherapeutic intervention for the treatment of PTSD that may be promising for women with CB-PTSD. WET consists of 5 treatment sessions. In the first, patients receive brief psychoeducation about PTSD and avoidance as a maladaptive behavior that maintains PTSD symptoms. In each of the five sessions, the patient writes about the same single traumatic event with a focus on feelings and cognitions during the event and how the event has affected their lives. Written exposure therapy can be conducted via telehealth, does not require between-session assignments for patients, is non-inferior to cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure therapy, and involves only four total hours of treatment, thus decreasing treatment time by 50-80% compared to other evidence-based psychotherapies for PTSD. This study aims to assess whether postpartum individuals would find such an intervention feasible and be able to maintain engagement to complete the protocol.