The researchers used self-reported data from a nationally representative sample of 697 pregnant veterans using Veterans Health Administration (VHA) maternity care benefits at 15 VHA medical centers between 2016 and 2020.

The study shows that female veterans who had experienced sexual trauma while serving in the military had significantly higher rates of depression around the time during or after pregnancy. The study also shows that higher depression among new moms was associated with poorer bonding between mother and child.

The study appears in Depression and Anxiety.

“This is a landmark study for women veterans,” says author Suzannah Creech, a research psychologist and associate professor in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.

“Childbearing and parenting experiences have been ignored for so long in the context of the military, and yet we are talking about a group of children potentially at risk for serious psychiatric disorders throughout their lifetimes,” she says.

Understanding the long-term impacts of military sexual trauma opens the possibility of mitigating eventual risks among future generations, Creech says. About 1 in 4 female veterans experience sexual assault during military service, compared with about 1 in 5 US women overall.

Creech points to previous findings indicating that children of military parents are more likely to join the military themselves.

“These children could be joining the armed forces with a risk factor already sparked by their own parents’ military experience, resulting in cycles of familial mental health problems,” she says.

Although previous research has focused on understanding the links between maternal depression and impaired bonding, less research has examined the emotional health and mother-infant bonding among women who have experienced trauma in adulthood, Creech says.

Read the full article about sexual trauma and the military by Shahreen Abedin at Futurity.