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Background The psychological birth trauma is a universal phenomenon in childbearing women. The influences could extend in a wide range, which includes the mothers’ health, mother-infant relationship, partner relationship. The medical staff could even choose to quit playing their part in the birthing process. The phenomenon has gradually garnered attention around the world. However, it has rarely been discussed under Chinese special conditions. The study was to explore Chinese women’s lived experiences of psychological birth trauma during labor and birth. Methods A descriptive phenomenological approach was adopted in this study. Twenty-four women were recruited, who reported having experienced psychological birth trauma. In-depth interviews were conducted within 1 week after birth. Colaizzi’s method was used to analyze the data. Results Twenty-four women participated in the study. Four themes emerged to describe the women’s experience of psychological birth trauma: “How am I supposed to relieve the endless pain?” “ Can’t I be weak?” “Am I not important?” “What uncertainties are waiting for me?” Conclusions The findings provide deep insight into Chinese women’s unique experience of psychological birth trauma. The social and health system could prevent psychological harm during birth and promote maternal health by measures of pain management, thoughtful attention, adequate caring, and prenatal preparation.

The purpose of a flood control reservoir operation is to prevent flood damage downstream of the reservoir and the safety of the reservoir itself. When a single reservoir cannot provide enough storage capacity for certain flood control points downstream, cascade reservoirs should be operated together to protect these areas from flooding. In this study, for efficient use of the reservoir storage, an optimal flood control operation model of cascade reservoirs for certain flood control points downstream was proposed. In the proposed model, the upstream reservoirs with the optimal operation strategy were considered to reduce the inflow of the reservoir downstream. For a large river basin, the flood routing and time-lag cannot be neglected. So, dynamic programming (DP) combined with the progressive optimality algorithm (POA) method, DP-POA, was proposed. Thus, the innovation of this study is to propose a two-stage optimal reservoir operation model with a DP-POA algorithm to solve the problem of optimal co-operation of cascade reservoirs for multiple flood control points downstream during the flood season. The upper Yangtze River was selected as a case study. Three reservoirs from upstream to downstream, Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba and the Three Gorges reservoirs (TGR) in the upper Yangtze River, were taken into account. Results demonstrate that the two-stage optimization algorithm has a good performance in solving the cascade reservoirs optimization problem, because the inflow of reservoir downstream and the division volumes were largely reduced. After the optimal operation of Xiluodu and Xiangjiaba reservoirs, the average reduction of flood peak for all these 13 typical flood hydrographs (TFHs) is 13.6%. Meanwhile, the cascade reservoirs can also store much more storm water during a flood event, and the maximum volumes stored in those two reservoirs upstream in this study can reach 25.2 billion m3 during a flood event. Comprising the proposed method with the current operation method, results demonstrate that the flood diversion volumes at the flood control points along the river decrease significantly.

As midwives witness and attend the whole process of childbirth, they have a better understanding of which factors may cause traumatic childbirth. However, because most of the studies paid their attention on mothers, little is known about psychological birth trauma from the perspective of midwives. This study aims to gain a full understanding of which factors may contribute to psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives. Methods: A qualitative research was conducted using in-depth interviews, which involved fourteen midwives from the maternal ward of a tertiary hospital. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and then, Colaizzi's method was used to analyze the contents of the interviews. Results: We proposed four themes and eight subthemes on the influencing factors of psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives: low perceived social support (lack of support from family and lack of support from medical staff), hard times (protracted labor in the first stage and futile efforts during the second stage), poor birth outcomes (poor birth outcomes of the mother and poor birth outcomes of the baby), and excruciating pain (unbearable pain of uterine contraction and labor pain was incongruent with the mother's expectations). Conclusion: Medical staff should pay attention to psychological traumatic childbirth and its effects, and emphasis on the screening and assessment of birthing women with negative feelings so that their psychological traumatic childbirth can be prevented and decreased.