PURPOSE:
Recently, trauma-informed care has been introduced in healthcare settings for patients suffering from trauma; however, this approach has rarely been applied to survivors of childhood sexual abuse in Japan. The survivors need to receive continuous and respectful care from supporters who were trained and skilled in trauma-informed care since they may experience negative psychological and social influences, such as re-experiencing trauma and bonding disorders during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce our innovative research project that aims to explore effective trauma-informed childbirth care for sexual survivors in Japan.

DISCUSSION:
The research project was developed by diverse research members including doulas, a sociologist, psychotherapist, and midwife. As a preparatory step to initiating the study, we have provided several trauma-informed childbirth care seminars that care providers could learn together on trauma-informed survivor-specific childbirth care. Then, we prepared a research protocol to interview not only survivors who were provided with trauma-informed childbirth care by doulas but also the doulas who completed the seminar and midwives who worked with them to provide childbirth care to survivors during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. Although the interview survey has just begun, a care network has steadily been established with doulas who care for survivors, midwives who care for survivors with their doulas, and psychotherapists who provided them with the trauma care they need. In the future, as the number of these surveys accumulate, the effects of trauma-informed childbirth care for survivors can be clarified from multiple perspectives. Learning about trauma-informed birth care together among all care providers, both medical and non-medical professionals, can be effective in building a support network of human resources for survivors.

EVIDENCE WHERE RELEVANT:
This research project was guided by English guidebooks (Klaus and Simkin, 2004, 2021; Hansard, 2020).

KEY MESSAGE:
All caregivers who support sexual survivors should learn trauma-informed childbirth care together. Poster session 4 (Group B)