Mode of birth and PTSD
Due to the variation in study methodology and outcome measures, it was not possible to perform meta-analysis across all studies for all of the review questions. Categorisation of mode of birth varied considerably. Mode of birth also tended to be a secondary outcome in studies, and rather than reporting individual statistics, many studies simply performed an analysis of variance for all modes of birth.
For this reason, the only comparison possible across all studies was whether mode of birth was significantly associated with symptoms of PTSD. Overall, eight of the studies found significant variance in symptoms of PTSD across the modes of birth they investigated . The remaining four studies did not find a significant association between mode of birth and PTSD .