Did the midwife butcher my labia?

[tracypenisbeaker]

Long story short, I had an assisted delivery a month ago when I had my son. This included short forceps and an episiotomy, plus I had clots behind my placenta and lost 1.5 ltrs of blood (really dont know if this is relevant, but may show how urgent the situation was therefore evoking a bit of sympathy on the woman delivering my child)

Anyway, i was looking at my vulva/ vagina today to see how well it had healed (had been on a course of antibiotics for offensive lochea) and had noticed right away there was a gap where labial (is that a word?) skin used to be...

Please don't get me wrong, I realise there are bigger things to worry about post-birth, but I was considering being intimate with my partner again after quite a long and understandable dry spell and noticed that and it put me off because I felt so altered. Can anyone relate to this or tell me if im being irrationally worried about a body part i never even look at? Or perhaps the MW was being cack-handed?

I really dont know! Thanks.

all i know is that even without assisted delivery that particular body part will never be the same again.....

i had 2 easy natural vaginal births with no issues or complications.

i have never been the same since. please dont think its just you or that its how the birth went - it isnt.

oh dear. . if you feel things are not right, you can see your gp and ask for a gynae referral. if it's all quite external, it might be quite easy to repair. are you in pain? any other problems? does it all feel ok otherwise?
xx

An episiotomy doesn't go through your labia, it goes through your perinieum. You may well have had another tear/graze on your labia, did you have your labia sutured or just the epis? They don't always need stitching.

A month isn't really a long time and you may find it improves still. With this sort of healing the healing occurs from the base of the wound to the surface so any holes kind of gradually fill in.

But yes it's true that often things don't go back to normal from a cosmetic perspective. I'm sure it won't bother your other half.

Viva my stitches go to the side, as opposed to straight down, not sure why...

Carda, everything is fine otherwise, no pain anymore. It was agony at first, could barely walk, which im sure is normal.Just got a bit of a shock when i saw the missing skin!

My partner isnt bothered thankfully, although he did bring it to my attention a couple of weeks ago (i asked him to seeif i had healed, was too scared to look myself!) But i didnt pay much attention to what he said as i just presumed things looked worse than they were, and it would heal back to normal.

Thank you posters for reassuring me, i will wait until my 6 week post natal checkup to bring it up with the GP, to see what the damage is x

An episiotomy will go out to the side at an angle not straight down. Hope you continue to heal.

Hi op it is very unlikely that a midwife did your delivery, if you are in the uk obstetricians do assisted deliveries including forceps.
Episiotomies are done more to the side these days in the hope of avoiding a third degree tear, when the rectal muscles get damaged.
I would go back to your gp and get them to have a look.
If the repair is not done correctly they can refer you back to hospital.
Good luck .

I had a sideways episiotomy and it healed eventually but it fell apart a few days after birth and had to heal in it's own way from there on as I got an infection. It looks ok now but there's a gap in the middle of the outer labia. Not too noticable and not painful now but it's certainly there!

Had the option for re-stitching 6 months after birth but I didn't want to go through it again as it was healed ok by then.

Has anyone checked them for you? After I had my son, the midwife visiting checked it all out. You can ask the hv for advice on getting it checked if you don't think it was stitched right.

Also, a month is still very early in the healing process. Mine looked awful for a while and now at a year looks pretty
Much back to normal

I tore naturally and my labia are very different now. I think it is just what happens post-birth

I had labial tears stitched and whilst things did not look the same, there was nothing 'missing', so I would go back to the gp and ask. Everyone's bits are different, so I think if you do not query it, they think it is fine.

My perineum was never right. No one was ever bothered about it or picked it up. I have just had it repaired, along with a small rectocele and really wish they had done it properly at the time. It feels so much better now.