Up to one in three Australian women have experienced birth trauma and one in 10 women emerge from childbirth with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and according to researchers, the problem is getting worse.

Key points: Suicide is one the leading causes of death for women in the first 12 months after birth

Suicide is one the leading causes of death for women in the first 12 months after birth Some women have reported being held down and mutilated during labour

Some women have reported being held down and mutilated during labour The Federal Government's plan to improve maternity services is being discussed at Friday's COAG meeting

Toowoomba mother Jessica Linwood clutched her husband Daniel's hand as she described the birth of their first child — when she experienced a postpartum haemorrhage — as "terrifying".

"I didn't know if I was going to die or not," she said.

"[A] midwife was pushing on my stomach to contract my uterus back down.

"I had said it hurt and [that] she was hurting me and she told me that I [would] die if she didn't do it.

"Things like that will stick with me forever."

Toowoomba mother Jessica Linwood was treated for PTSD after a traumatic birth. ( Supplied: Jessica Linwood )

'No support' for fathers

Mr Linwood said it was difficult having no control over what was happening in the moments after his daughter was born and described "mad panic" as medical staff hurried to help his wife.

"She got rushed away. I had a split-second decision to stay with Harper or go with Jess," he said.

Mr Linwood said he was forced to rely on family and friends because there was "no real support" for fathers from professionals.

"I think blokes find it a lot harder to open up to just talk," he said.

Ms Linwood says her daughter's birth was "terrifying". ( ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris )

The Toowoomba couple said when they fell pregnant with their second child the extent of Ms Linwood's fears were realised and she was treated for PTSD.

"My fear was leaving my daughter without a mother," she said.

"There was no escaping it. I had to give birth again, so I was terrified to go through the same thing for a second time.

"[The second] pregnancy was worse than the first because now I knew that things could go wrong so my anxiety was a lot higher.

"I had a doctor … he had actually said to me [that] he was shocked that I was back to have another one."

Mr Linwood says the birth of his second child was less stressful. ( Supplied: Jessica Linwood )

The 'healthy baby' narrative

Australia's peak maternity lobby group said with maternal suicide one of the leading causes of death for women in the first 12 months after birth, the maternity system was at "crisis point".

The Maternity Consumer Network (MCN) has blamed the problem on overmedicalisation during childbirth, and said the national caesarean rate of 34 per cent was three times the rate recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Director Alecia Staines said what should be considered a sacred time has been leaving women with physical and emotional scars.

"'All that matters is a healthy baby, so it doesn't matter what happens to the mum' — I don't believe that for one second, but that's rhetoric women hear," she said.

"Women are coerced, they're bullied. We hear of women being yelled at, forced into procedures they don't really want [and] there is lack of informed consent."

Alecia Staines is fighting for all women to have access to the continuity of care birthing model. ( Nathan Morris: ABC Southern Queensland )

Ms Staines said one in three Australian women are experiencing trauma during birth, and the effects were being felt across society.

"From not being able to bond with the baby, to marriage breakdowns," she said.

"Women [are] having to give up their jobs because it is so debilitating when they've got PTSD or PND (post-natal depression) [caused] from a combination of things, but birth trauma is a contributing factor."

'We send them back to the battlefield'

Hannah Dahlen, director of nursing and midwifery at Western Sydney University, likened the PTSD that women faced after childbirth to the suffering of war veterans.

"Up to one in ten [women] emerge from childbirth with PTSD," she said.

"When our young men come back … we counsel them, we support them, we give them psychological support and we don't send them back to the scene that caused their trauma.

"In childbirth, we send women straight back to the battlefield."

Professor Dahlen said women were often cared for by strangers, leading to a breakdown in communication.

"It's like a factory; you come in, you come out. We've forgotten there are humans there — there is no connection," she said.

"If we don't get it right for the hand that rocks the cradle [mothers], we as a society are going to see the implications of the repercussions."

Professor Dahlen said women who had continuity of midwifery care — the same midwife through pregnancy, labour, birth and six weeks post-partum — had less medical interventions and were more satisfied with their births.

Continuity of midwifery care key

Liz Wilkes runs the largest private midwifery practice in Australia. ( ABC News: Alexandra Blucher )

Liz Wilkes is the managing director of My Midwives — Australia's largest private midwifery practice providing continuity of care for pregnant women — and has called for funding reform so women have the option of a more affordable maternity healthcare model.

"The guts of it is that women don't actually realise that they can say 'no' [and] that they can actually ask for what they need in their birth experience," she said.

"We do have, at the moment, health ministers both at state and federal levels, who are accepting that continuity of midwifery care is evidence based and is the way to start really addressing this problem.

"The thing about continuity [of care] is that it has such great outcomes and is so much cheaper.

"If we actually started to move some money into that bucket we would see benefits in spades."

'They act in your best interest'

Toowoomba mother Andy Martin described her first birth as difficult, but said the support she received from her midwife was crucial.

Ms Martin says midwife support led to two positive birth experiences. ( ABC Southern Queensland: Elly Bradfield )

"We never felt on our own or never felt scared," she said.

"They keep you informed and they keep you supported and they [are] always acting in your best interest."

Ms Martin said support after childbirth was crucial to addressing issues with birth trauma.

"It gets even more challenging after you have the baby, and that might be why those issues aren't really ever taken off your chest," she said.

"Going in on the actual day that you're giving birth and not knowing who's going to be there … not even knowing their [the midwife's] name — I think that could be, for one, a huge implication on how the whole event goes."

Ms Martin says her first birth was difficult but she was well supported. ( ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris )

Feminism's forgotten issue

Ms Staines from the Maternity Consumer Network said prominent feminists had "dropped the ball" by focusing on access to abortion at the exclusion of women's treatment during birth.

"It is really disappointing that it seems to be almost like the forgotten feminist issue," she said.

"Birth trauma is real and the reproductive rights must extend to women who [have] decided to keep their babies, and extend to birth."

Professor Dahlen said the majority of women do have babies and raise children.

"As a result of feminists dropping the ball on this issue, we've ended up with this landscape of desolation for women's mental health," she said.

"We have to fix it — we have to reclaim it."

'A violation of human rights'

She has teamed up with lawyer and director of Human Rights in Childbirth, Bashi Hazard, to write a book, which they hope will expose the extent of the issue for women.

Ms Hazard left a lucrative career as a competition and consumer lawyer to fight for women after her own birth experience.

"I have women who have reported being held down by security guards while the babies are removed by forceps," she said.

"I've had women who have shown me that they'd been mutilated during childbirth, I've had women who report that they've had hands shoved into them, while they're screaming 'no', repeatedly.

"They're patted on the head and they're told to consider themselves fortunate that they and their babies are alive and they need to go home.

"So they're not getting justice, no."

Ms Hazard said the challenges for women of colour were even more significant.

"We do that to Indigenous women and we actually then send them back to already difficult circumstances," she said.

"It is it is a violation of human rights and it's cruel."

Alecia Staines said what should be considered a sacred time has been leaving women with physical and emotional scars. ( ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris )

Obstetrician with the Australian Medical Association, Gino Pecoraro, said trauma could mean different things to different people.

"For some people, it may be that they've had a fourth-degree tear right into their rectum, but the other people, they can feel quite traumatised if their delivery didn't go the way they planned," he said.

"It's hard to say whether it's increasing or just that people are more likely to talk about their experiences during pregnancy and labour.

"We've gotten quite good at keeping mothers and babies alive and safe so now I think it's becoming more about their experience."

Dr Pecoraro said there was room for improvement, but Australia should be proud of its record, with maternal mortality and perinatal mortality rates for babies among the world's best.

"Nobody would argue that having familiar faces looking after you isn't a good thing," he said.

"But it comes down to what society, what our Government, [and] what our community is prepared to pay for."

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said he was working with the states and territories to develop a national strategy to improve maternity services across Australia.

The plan, which includes continuity of midwifery care, will be discussed at a Council of Australian Governments meeting this Friday.