For months after Meghan Trainor welcomed her first child, Riley, via cesarean section, she says she could still vividly feel the pain of the ordeal — and even sometimes felt like she was still in the hospital.
“I was like, ‘It’s so weird.' To my therapist and my doctors, I was like, ‘It’s like I’m back in the room,’” she told Hoda Kotb on the TODAY show on April 24. “At nighttime, when the pain would kick in, I was like ... 'I'm still on the table.”
Trainor, 29, ended up being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as a result of her scary birth experience.
“They were like, ‘So we have to work through this. That’s a sign of PTSD,’” she said, recalling how professionals reacted when she shared how she was feeling. “I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’”
About 9% of women experience postpartum PTSD, according to Postpartum Support International (PSI), an organization that spreads awareness about emotional challenges people may experience during pregnancy and after birth.
Symptoms of postpartum PTSD can include “intrusive re-experiencing of a past traumatic event,” which could include “the childbirth itself,” the organization says on its website.
Other PTSD symptoms can include flashbacks or nightmares, irritability, hypervigilance, anxiety or panic attacks.
Postpartum PTSD is "temporary and treatable with professional help," PSI also notes.
Trainor also recalled to Hoda what was so upsetting about her first childbirth experience.
“When they were like, 'C-section,' because baby Riley was breach, I was like, Oh, do I have to be awake? It was the scariest,” Trainor said. “I felt like I was jumping out of a plane. The whole time, I was just with my husband shaking. I was just like, surrender. ... Truly, you lose control, and it’s all right. We’ll get through this. And we did. We survived.”
The “Mother” singer said that while many new parents may have “suffered with (PTSD)" silently in the past, discussing her PTSD symptoms has helped her better understand what she's experienced.
“Once I talked about it and realized, like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t awesome,’ it helped break it down,” she said.
“I had a C-section that was wild, and it wasn’t like a fairy tale birth, but I got a fairy tale baby,” she recalled. “I got a dream baby, and I was like, even if you go through all that, you can still have a perfect baby.”
The Grammy winner welcomed her son, Riley, with husband Daryl Sabara, in February 2021. She is also seven months pregnant with the couple’s second child, whose gender has not yet been revealed.
The “All About That Bass” singer opened up about being pregnant with Riley during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I couldn’t leave my house, and it was just a very scary time,” she said.
Trainor says the challenges she experienced before and after giving birth inspired her to write her new book, “Dear Future Mama,” in which she shares tips about pregnancy and early motherhood.
“I just had so many questions, and I feel like I didn’t get answers, and I never want anyone else to feel like I did,” she told Hoda.
Trainor also reflected on how being a mom has changed her.
"With the birth and C-section process I was like, ‘Oh, if I can do this, I can do anything,’” she said. “And then afterwards, having (Riley) there gave me the most motivation to be the best version of myself. So I started proving myself, like, ‘Oh, you have a goal? Let’s achieve it, let’s do it.’ And I changed my whole life.”
She added that having children has not mean losing her identity.
“I heard a lot of people say once you have kids, your life ends, and it’s theirs,” she said. “And I was like, no, dude. My life just started because I’m going to be the best version of me I can be for this kid.”