**1. Introduction**

In most countries and cultures, the experience of giving birth is considered a positive experience in a woman's life cycle. It is presumed that bringing a new being to this world opens the door to happiness and joy for a woman, her partner, and the whole family. In most cases it is so; if we exclude the expected "baby blues" during the postpartum period, the time after giving birth is mostly filled with positive experiences, and the childbirth itself remains a beautiful memory.

However, there are well-known situations where childbirth can be experienced as an unwanted experience filled with pain, trauma, and unpleasant emotions. It is only during the last few decades that the experts began to deal with this topic and scientific research began, in search of answers to what exactly leads to the experience of traumatic childbirth, what are its manifestations and consequences.

At the Institute of Mental Health and Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic "Narodni front," situated in Belgrade, Serbia—for the first time, during the past decade, a study was conducted on traumatic childbirth experience, risk factors for its occurrence, and clinical consequences for the mother.

From the information found in literature so far, it is known that the consequences of a traumatic childbirth experience can be many. In the postpartum period, a woman who has given birth can have only a couple of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, or she can develop a clinical form of this disorder. A traumatic experience can, consequently, lead to a damaged attachment with the baby, impaired relationship between partners, as well as general dysfunctionality of a woman. Another possible consequence is the occurrence of secondary tokophobia.

Due to all of the above, the scientific observation of postpartum PTSD can open the door to a timely and adequate preventive work, better training of health professionals to recognize and offer help to women who have given birth and had traumatic childbirth experience, who are silently suffering hidden within the circle of their loved ones.
