Understanding the Interaction Between Infant Feeding and Maternal Mental Health and Well-Being in Women who Experience Psychological Birth Trauma: A Scoping Review Protocol

Objective: To review the literature to understand women’s experiences of and the interactions between infant feeding, mental health and wellbeing following psychological birth trauma. Introduction: Childbirth can be a traumatic experience for some women and can ultimately only be defined by the woman experiencing it. Birth trauma leads to negative mental health and wellbeing outcomes for women, their children and their partners. Impacts on maternal mental health and wellbeing include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), post-partum depression (PPD) and bonding issues but also potential for post-traumatic growth (PTG). Traumatic births can have a negative impact on breastfeeding experiences due to poorer maternal physical and psychological wellbeing. If breastfeeding does not go as planned, it can be associated with a sense of failure, guilt or shame. Therefore, infant feeding experiences may have the potential to either heal or compound the impact of traumatic births on maternal mental health and well-being. Methods: The guidelines for scoping reviews from the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis will be followed. A key word search strategy will be used to search: Academic Search Complete; APA PsychInfo; MEDLINE; CINAHL and APA PsychArticles databases; Google scholar, Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) website. English language and date restrictions (2000-current) will be used. Studies will be screened in Covidence by two independent reviewers. Titles and abstracts and full-text articles will be independently screened by two reviewers. Data will be extracted and presented graphically using figures and tables. Narrative summary text will accompany the tables and figures. Conclusion: Given the potential for infant feeding experiences to either heal or compound the impact psychological birth trauma on maternal mental health and wellbeing, it is important to understand women’s experiences of these three constructs and how they interact with one another.