I work in obstetrics and I know some women definitely get very traumatized from their birth expereince. I've been with women in labour where they truly believe they are going to die, such is the intensity of the adrenalin rush and hormonal influence. For some women, it can be very very scary to have their body 'take over' and the loss of feeling they are in control for some, is truly terrifying. I've seen women experience a lot of PTSD symptoms as a direct result of birth. Sometimes it's due to an experience where their baby died, or nearly died; or where they hemorrhaged and felt very faint (and felt as if they were going to die as a result); where babies' have got 'stuck' coming out and needed a lot of resuscitation as a result, and transferred to NICU; of pregnancies ended suddenly with a very premature baby and then the parents spending months of pain and uncertainty as their baby fights for his or her life for months in NICU. And I've also had some women traumatized by the act of giving birth, even when everything has 'gone well' and both themselves and their baby are fine, yet the women FELT they were 'going to die'.
As for if you have PTSD, that can only be diagnosed by someone qualified to do so. If you read through this site you will find some of the symptoms include flashbacks, re-expericnign the trauma -and to be diagnosed as having PTSD there needs to be a clinically recognized trauma. The diagnostic criteria are very specific as to what constitutes a 'trauma' in terms of a clinical diagnosis.
HOWEVER, that is not to say something not defined in the clinical PTSD diagnosis as to what constitutes 'trauma', is not traumatic. It is of course possible to be traumatized (and very affected) by a huge range of different experiences, even if the trauma itself is not linked to a PTSD diagnosis.
