The lifetime consequences of sexual abuse as a
traumatic experience does not simply end because at
some point in time the sexual abuse did; rather it is
known to create specific long-term problems that have
the ability to disrupt women’s lives. When women
become mothers, their children can also experience
specific kinds of problems stemming from their
mother’s trauma of childhood sexual abuse. For
example, mothers sexually abused as children may
experience more intense and prolonged postpartum
depression than mothers who have not experienced this
trauma. Women frequently experience another type of
depression (dysthymic) associated with childhood
sexual abuse, which then becomes compounded by
postpartum depression. Children whose mothers were
sexually abused in their childhood may be at greater
risk for the actual trauma of childhood sexual abuse to
occur to them given that the majority of perpetrators
are family members or known to the family and that
family perpetrators sexually abuse a number of children
within generations.
Children can also be affected by the long-term
problems their mothers may experience associated with
childhood sexual abuse. Emotional problems
including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders
along with chronic and multiple physical health
problems can occur either daily or periodically and
interfere with a woman’s availability to her children or
cause adult responsibilities to be transferred onto a child
because a mother is not able to function.