I've been thinking about this in relation to abortion.
One of the things which strikes me, is how casual the forced-birthers are about the idea of forcing women to carry and bear children they don't want. "It's only 9 months!" they cry, as if nine months of morning sickness and bone degeneration is nothing and 24 hours of physical torture followed by lifelong incontinence is irrelevant.
I'd like to compile a list of side effects caused or exacerbated by pregnancy and birth because I'd like to do a blog post about it. My basic fury about this, is how women's lives are so marginal, that most people have NO CLUE about the very real short, medium and long term risks and side effects of pregnancy and birth - even when they become pregnant. Only if you get one of the conditions, or know someone who has, do you ever find out about the things you can suffer from as a result of pregnancy.
And if men were told that they would have to endure one of these conditions, in order to keep their child alive when they hadn't planned it and didn't want it, they would ... well, WTF am I on about really, no-one would ever tell men that they have to endure these health impacts for the sake of someone else without positively choosing to endure them.
So off the top of my head, here are the ones I can think of:
Constant nausea for months
Increased risk of osteoporosis
Diabetes, sometimes permanent - anyone know any stats on this?
SPD
Fistula
Stress incontinence
The other type of incontinence which you get from Caesarean sections, the name of which escapes me (anyone?)
Eclampsia
Pre-eclampsia
PTSD
PND
Mastitis
I googled "long term side effects of pregnancy" and literally, found one entry - which listed stretch marks, sagging breasts and average 5lb weight retention.
Looks like there's a bit of a silence on this and I don't think there should be.
Any help much appreciated!
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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions
The complications and long term health implications of pregnancy and childbirth
145 replies
FestiviaBlueberry · 05/01/2013 01:02
OP posts:
ArtexMonkey ·
05/01/2013 02:05
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