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Birth Shattered Me: Traumatic Pregnancy and Childbirth as Self-Annihilating

Long, Erin
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Abstract
Postpartum mothers sometimes report that �birth shattered me,� and that who they were before birth died. My philosophical project seeks to make sense of these instances as cases of traumatic self-annihilation, wherein the traumatic experience of childbirth annihilates the mother�s self, rendering her self-less. Drawing on feminist philosophers� accounts of personal identity, Susan Brison�s work on the relationship between the self and trauma, and testimony from survivors of traumatic childbirth, I argue that certain cases of traumatic childbirth are cases of self-annhilation and explain how the traumatic experience destroys a mother�s self, leaving her without a self at all.
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Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Senior (Graduating in 2026)
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Type of presentation
Oral Presentation
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UVM Student Research Conference
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URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14849/10449
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Advisor(s)
Kate Nolfi
Department
Program/Major
Philosophy
College/School
College of Arts and Sciences
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Research Category
Arts and Humanities
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