For Birth Trauma Awareness Week, Jen Hall from the MASIC foundation, which supports women who have suffered serious injuries during childbirth, writes about her experience of childbirth and the MASIC's Foundation latest findings:
"When I gave birth back in 2013 I had no idea what lay ahead of me. I’m not talking about the sleepless nights, breastfeeding battles, or any of the other aspects of new motherhood that are widely talked about. What I had to cope with alongside new motherhood is something that is rarely spoken about - yet is a major trauma for the thousands of women affected each year.
Severe birth injuries, or third- and fourth-degree tears, are injuries that extend from the vagina into the anal sphincter and are a leading cause of bowel incontinence in women - alongside pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic organ prolapse, nerve damage and impaired sexual function.
My birth injury was caused by being left to push for three hours, causing a traction injury to the pudendal nerve, followed by two failed attempts with the ventouse and a brutal forceps delivery where my baby’s head and body were delivered in one contraction. Long term it has left me with many of the symptoms listed above. I’m a shell of the person I was, my confidence has been deeply affected, and I no longer feel like a woman who has control of her body.
My experience of motherhood was deeply affected by the injuries I sustained. I didn’t walk into hospital at 33 years of age to have my baby and expect to come out unable to run for the rest of my life or to carry out the most basic of bodily functions.
At The MASIC Foundation we carried out a survey at the beginning of the year to try and assess exactly what impact sustaining a severe birth injury can have on your experience of motherhood. We knew women would find this difficult to talk about, so the survey was completely anonymous. The survey ran for a month across our social media channels, and we received responses from 325 women who self-identified as having suffered severe perineal trauma when giving birth.
- 85% of women who sustained severe maternal perineal trauma said it impacted on their relationship with their child.
- 49% of women said they doubted their ability to mother because of the injury.
- 46% said the injury affected their relationship with their partner and wider family.
- 34% felt their relationship with their child was affected because they associated their child as the cause of their injury.
- 31% said they wondered whether their child would be better off without them.
- 24% of women affected regretted having a child because of the injuries they are left with.
The results we have gathered are shocking and heart-breaking, and show in stark reality the impact these injuries are having on mums and babies each year. These injuries can lead to feelings that no woman expects to feel or wants her experience of motherhood to be. The results are hard to comprehend. But if you have suffered a severe birth injury, I’d wager you can relate to some of these feelings.
I felt that I was a failure after my birth, that there was something wrong with my birthing body that had led to this. I spiralled into a deep depression, unable to comprehend that a) having a baby could leave you like this, and nobody tells you and b) women are expected to go home with life-changing injuries and just get on with it because they are mothers now.
And these feelings led to a complete rejection of motherhood in the early days. If my body could be treated so casually as collateral damage, then why did either of us matter anymore? What good would I be to my son if I couldn’t ever lift him, play or run around with him? I fixated on the time before my pregnancy and birth, before everything ‘went wrong’. I’d unwittingly given permission for an assault on my body that had profound implications for my future.
If I tried to speak out about how I was feeling to the health visitor or to my GP I felt like I was being judged on my ability to parent. I was told my injury was ‘all in my head’ on numerous occasions and another health professional suggested that maybe it was because ‘deep down I didn’t want my baby.’ The ignorance and judgement I faced only worked to compound my isolation and distress and I feared I was a bad mother because of the things I was being told every single day.
The feminist inside me was raging.
My feelings are echoed in accounts we have heard as a charity, from other women who experienced severe injury during childbirth:
“My confidence, my me-ness, the essence of who I am, has been destroyed, my relationships with my child and my partner have suffered.”
“With my son, I love him dearly, he is the best thing in my life, but his birth caused the injury and it is difficult to square the two,”
“Every year I dread his birthday and the reminders of my traumatic experience. It is not fair on him or on me – his birthdays are not a happy occasion, but every year I have to pretend it is.”
“I am ashamed to say that at times I wished I had never become a mother and I grieved for the life I had before, I paid such a high price to have a baby.”
I know these feelings are controversial to express. But I feel they are important if we are ever going to get the NHS and policy makers to sit up and take notice of women whose bodies and lives have been deeply affected by childbirth injury and trauma. As long as women are expected to endure poor treatment while giving birth, these injuries will continue. Motherhood should not become an identity that disregards womanhood, and women should not feel afraid to speak out about the physical, emotional and psychological effects of birth injury."
Read the MASIC Foundation's full survey findings here.
Follow MASIC on Instagram: @masicfoundation
Facebook: @MASICFOUNDATION
Twitter: @masic_uk
If you're looking for support or to talk to someone about your experience, please call the MASIC 24h freephone Birth Injury Support Helpline 0808 1640 8333.
Jen will be coming back onto the thread on Tuesday (time tbc) to answer your questions.