Beyond the birthing body: Towards a relational and inclusive understanding of birth trauma. A commentary on Donegan et al. (2025)

In their recent scoping review, Donegan, Zhao, and Mansu (2025) provide a valuable synthesis of international best practice guidelines on birth trauma support for birthing women. While several reviews have explored fathers' experiences of traumatic or complicated births and proposed recommendations for improved care, systematic implementation and empirical evaluation remain limited. In this commentary, we broaden Donegan et al.'s focus on birthing women by extending the scope of trauma-informed perinatal care to also include non-birthing parents. Drawing on findings from a Danish qualitative study conducted in spring 2025, as well as existing research and theoretical perspectives, we explore how non-birthing parents can be profoundly affected by traumatic births - often without recognition or adequate support. We conclude by offering six recommendations for practice and future research aimed at broadening the scope of trauma-informed perinatal care to meaningfully include non-birthing parents and thereby reduce the triadic impact of birth trauma and support individual and family functioning.