Birth PTSD: Mothers speak out about long-term trauma

The first time Michelle Livesey-Giles saw her daughter Olivia, she was covered by medical wires, monitors and tubes.

Olivia was born at 25 weeks and weighed 635 grams.

The new mum was plunged into a profound shock that is usually associated with returned soldiers.

"I didn't realise that I was at risk too," she said.

"When they [the doctors] tilted the bed slightly ... I could hear my blood running off ... it was horrific, I ended up with a third of my blood volume," she said.

Ms Livesey-Giles cried when she first saw her daughter.

"I just started crying and apologising to her ... she didn't look like a baby, there were tubes and wires and everything," she said.

"One of the worst things was that I wasn't the first to see Olivia, I was probably the 50th person down the line.

"It was not what you picture when giving birth."

Ms Livesey-Giles and her newborn daughter stayed in hospital for over three months.

"The biggest turning point was when I got to hold Olivia for the first time, when she was two weeks old, it all switched on and shifted from 'alien into a box' into 'this is my child'," she said.

But Ms Giles-liversey had nightmares and struggled to cope in the aftermath of her experience in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

"Afterwards I remember sitting down watching Greys Anatomy. I couldn't watch any of it, not just birth scenes, but if they went into an operating theatre I just had to turn it off," she said.

"It was the operating theatre scenarios that I had nightmares about and [counsellors] said you have to push through and not avoid it. I had to force myself to not avoid it."

Later, Ms Livesey-Giles found it difficult when she became pregnant with her second child.

"I was thinking in terms of viability, not the normal pregnancy milestones, she said.

"I remember crying in the shower, thinking I could die, even though there wasn't anything wrong. I felt like I was walking on eggshells the entire pregnancy."

'My God, something is going to happen'

Justine Shailes gave birth to her son Archie at 31 weeks, but due to complications his lungs failed to develop.

Several months after her son was released from the hospital, Ms Shailes felt a constant and intense panic.

"I would think: 'My god, something is going to happen', and I'd get really panicky which isn't like me at all — [my partner] was experiencing the same thing," she said.

"It's this heightened stress feeling rather than just being sad. I felt sad about what we went through, but this was different.

'You've become so used to trauma that you almost expect it all the time now."

Ms Shailes said the hardest thing was leaving the NICU and its intense but "supportive" environment.

"The baby gets a lot of follow-up support, you go back every few months but there is no one ringing up the parents and asking us if we're going ok," she said.

"Once you leave the NICU there's nothing at all."

Counselling helps parents cope

Ms Shailes said she only received help after it became clear her partner of 13 years was struggling to cope.

"Things got so bad for Dave that we had to do something. I think I probably would have kept trudging along thinking 'she'll be right, she'll be right," she said.

"It made us go, 'ok, we're not alright and we need some help' ... it was only in getting help for Dave that we heard about Carers WA counselling help and support.

"That [Carers WA] has made the world of difference for us because we can't afford counselling otherwise."

Psychologist Catherine Campbell said it could be an isolating experience for parents in the NICU.

"Many parents are in the NICU for more than 100 or 200 days," Dr Campbell said.

"It's often just the parents allowed in, [with] their children meeting their new brother or sister through a photograph."

But despite the challenges, Dr Campbell said parents overcome them.

"We need to remember that it's an extraordinary experience for families and it commands something extraordinary from them; we see them rising to that challenge all the time," she said.