Alyssa Milano is opening up about experiencing flashbacks of being sexually assaulted while giving birth for the first time.

The actress and Sorry Not Sorry author appears on this week’s episode of PEOPLE’s new podcast Me Becoming Mom, at one point looking back on giving birth to son Milo Thomas, now 10, and identifying why the “invasive” experience triggered her.

“I remembered at one point [during childbirth] really not enjoying the fact that lots of people had access to my vagina,” said the 48-year-old.

“And thinking to myself, ‘Why does – I don’t like this… Why does it feel so familiar? I’ve never had a baby before. Why does this invasive feeling feel so familiar?’ That was just a fleeting moment, a tick in time, but I didn’t forget about it.”

“After going through therapy after giving birth to Milo and remembering that one moment of feeling like I was being held down and had things being done to me that I didn’t want, to me, was very reminiscent of being sexually assaulted,” Milano continued, adding that giving birth to her second child — she also shares Elizabella Dylan with husband David Bugliari — “triggered all these memories” she thought she had dealt with.

“I think anyone who has dealt with trauma has the moments where you’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve dealt with that.’ Versus the moments where you go, ‘Oh, no I didn’t. I just tried to tuck it away so no one could see them, or I couldn’t see them or feel them anymore.'”

Milano shares her two kids with husband David Bugliari.
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Milano, who shares Milo and daughter Elizabella, 7, with husband David Bugliari, had never before heard anyone else describe childbirth as a traumatizing experience for survivors of sexual abuse.

“But that’s what it felt like for me,” she said. “I’ve got to think that because it felt that way for me, it must have felt that way for other women. And I wonder how much of my postpartum anxiety was due to — of course, hormones and all of the things — but also that feeling that felt like I wasn’t in control, you know?”

Many social media users did not take Milano’s comments comparing childbirth to sexual assault lightly, with one Twitter user writing, “Childbirth is a natural part of life and the doctors/nurses were only in that area to ensure that the child comes into the world alive and safely,” while another agreed, adding, “That’s not a good comparison at all. Who says that s***!?”

However, not all people went after Milano for her comments, and a few people agreed with the 48-year-old actress, like one Twitter user who wrote, “Yes, childbirth can turn into a medical emergency very quickly. Delivery can be a medically traumatic experience, just like dental procedures, biopsies, drain removals, insertion of a chest tube. It can all be very fast, violent and painful.”

The actress first came forward about being sexually assaulted in 2018 when she helped launch the viral #MeToo campaign.

She then shared details of the assault she experienced at a concert when she was just 19, saying, “I was at a concert of a very famous pop star who told the crowd to get closer to her. This resulted in a stampede. People were smashed against each other. I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was gonna die.”

“From behind me, I felt a hand up my skirt and I was punched repeatedly in the vagina,” she explained at the time. “I couldn’t turn around. I looked to the stage, and I looked to the security guards, and I said, ‘Please help me’ and they couldn’t help me. They shook their heads. I managed to break free and I climbed up the stage to get away from my predator. I turned around and I didn’t know which one it was. I looked to the sea of people and I couldn’t find him.”

In 2019, Milano said that she had been sexually assaulted on the set of a film during the shooting of a sex scene.

Without naming the film or person involved, Milano said that a man who was 17 years older than her “took advantage of a moment of complete vulnerability [and] literal exposure”.

“[He] put his hand under my underwear and [tried] to force his fingers inside of me,” Milano said. “He violated me on a set with cameras rolling.”