Brighton midwives told to say “front hole”

I cannot get my head around using your body to do literally the most female thing possible (pregnancy and childbirth), and that is not a problem AT ALL, but hearing the words “mother” and “vagina” are unbearably triggering.

Colour me skeptical, but it seems to me just another way of controlling people

I also think in a country where you might wait hours and hours for someone to come to you if you've had a stroke, or if you've got an elderly relative on the ground dehydrating and going hypothermic with a broken hip, who'll then spend a couple of shifts in an ambulance bay and three days on a trolley in A&E waiting for a bed?

You're probably able to accept someone calling your vagina a vagina when they're telling you that you've got a massive tear in it that needs sewing up.

It's trying to cover a whole lot more that is dodgy in profound and multiple ways. Not least the wasting of time, energy and money on something that is actually and exclusively benefitting male people.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

Thanks for that link. I would really hope that no one was encouraging the use of 'front hole' as a term to go on that document.

I do understand wanting to make women comfortable when giving birth, but if a medical professional is dealing with a 2nd/3rd/4th degree tear, are they really going to go flicking back through paper work to see if the female in question is comfortable with the term 'perinium' or is insisting on 'gooch' instead?

This is what came up from Google. There may be a supporting document. www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/My-Language-Preferences.pdf

I find this amazing. They're allowing individual patients to specify their preferred term for cervix, vulva, labia etc. How on earth is a midwife going to remember that for each individual patient? Who has the time? And what if they're talking to another midwife while the patient is present? Do they use the patient's preferred term or the correct anatomical term? Recipe for disaster.

Seriously, I don't think anybody is saying that if a woman in labour is asked something about her vagina and she says, oh please don't call it that, I find the word really triggering, and midwife says, I'm sorry love tough luck, then that's okay.

It's about rewriting an NHS Policy, that offends 99.9% of women, about their own anatomy. Even if it's not them who are being referred to.

In a face-to-face situation, one would expect healthcare professionals to tailor the way they talk, to accommodate the person to whom they're talking. Within reason obviously.

But front hole, to 99.9% of women, is not a reasonable description of their anatomy. Even if it's only used to describe a subset of women.

I'm struggling to think of the equivalent for men. Most men seem to have a completely different relationship with their anatomy than women do with theirs.

Things like, say, 'mighty todger', which you can imagine a subset of men liking, may not be offensive to a vast number of other men.

But what about 'small bit of dangly flesh'? It's accurate, it's perfectly descriptive, it's reasonably gender neutral.

I wonder how 99.9% of men would feel if a subset of their cohort wanted it written into NHS Policy, that it be referred to in that way because the word penis is so triggering and awful.

I dislike "front hole" because I'm genuinely taken aback by the number of people who think that we menstruate, give birth and pass urine from the same orifice. This is despite years of biology lessons, PHSE, and, in some cases having actually given birth.

I like plain language, I don't support misleading language. If somebody fills out the preference sheet and there's a clear example to illustrate their understanding of what is meant by their preferred terms, that is up to them and to be negotiated between them and their HCPs.

Sure .

I think the limit is language they understand that is not offensive. There’s a big jump from vagina to cunt, I’m sure we could agree middle ground there.

No I wouldn’t use any obscene terms and I’d explain that but no one is going to ask me to are they?

www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/My-Language-Preferences.pdf

The Perinatal Care Guide has been available for some time and has a number of FWR threads.

www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/MP005-Perinatal-Care-for-Trans-and-Non-Binary-People.pdf

At that point woyid it matters though. I mean I think its actually extremely unfair that this is put on medical staff. Friends and family play along because no one wants to be the " bad guy" and that lumbers the medical.staff not only with having to deal with giving and news they have ti deal with the fall out from acknowledging reality to patient triggered by it too.

Then someone in a right state has to somehow be able to get it together enough to make a decision.

This is why it's not kind I the slightest to indulge any of it. Sooner or later it will fall.apart. and in a medical emergency during child birth, its gonna end up being down to midwives to bail out parents, friends, family, drs etc who just didn't want to upset someone and tell them the truth from the beginning.

Its not theor job and staff shouldn't have to agree to do it.

They're trying to make a labouring woman with dysphorphia feel more comfortable. Whatever. If it helps it helps.

As a midwife (not overly proud to admit that atm) I can’t count how many times I’ve had to explain to a woman what a urethra is and that she has one, usually when explaining prior to inserting a catheter. The lack of education women receive about their own bodies never fails to astound me. I don’t think policies promoting made up slang is going to help this.
That being said in practice I use whatever language my patient understands, I’ve never had anyone request anything absurd. If I’m carrying out a procedure (VE, catheter, cannula etc) I need to be absolutely sure the woman understands what is going to happen or it’s not informed consent and potentially assault. I don’t think during labour is the time to question or explore someone’s preferences. I would only use medical terminology between colleagues.

But overall I agree that it is very important that clear language is used and 'preferences' don't really come into it

I sadly wonder what would happen in a medical negligence case. God forbid something ever happened, could a case fall apart on language? If, instead of assigning blame to hospital policies /staff and the patient who suffered a loss/serious injury granted compensation or apology etc . Could it in fact lead to a conclusion of, given the patients reluctance to acknowledge the reality of the situation and be in receipt of all the information in medically accurate terms, the hospital in fact did all they could within the patients agreed parameters and therfore there is no case/compensation or whatever.

It’s not a hole.

Whatever word you used you were still highly aware of your sex and what had happened

What's being asked here is that midwives Indulge a lie about sex and bodies with people who they cannot even be sure are even aware of the reality around their body.

This is where I’m going to end the conversation because I cannot get around the hypocrisy. It’s the same thing. It’s using factually incorrect language in a medical setting. I didn’t say, ‘he ejaculated in my vagina’. I said, ‘he finished up there’ and sort of vaguely pointed. The doctor was trained to work with me and navigate a difficult conversation using the words I was comfortable with. I’m afforded that right. I can’t take it away from others.

And I can assure you that trans men are very bloody aware of their body and sex. They’re not stupid. It’s the entire reason they are transitioning. There are very few of them that would wish to use the terms we’re talking about anyway.

But overall I agree that it is very important that clear language is used and 'preferences' don't really come into it.

If you can't handle the word 'vagina' being used when you are giving birth, then you probably shouldn't be having kids.

Is there a link anywhere for the 'My Language Preferences' document? I don't like getting this sort of info direct from the Daily Mail, as much as they are bringing sunlight to the general issue, as they have major form for making up bullshit (I wil always remember an article about Syrian refugees on a Scottish island and it was like playing bingo!)