Awful practice of symphisiotomy - WARNING harrowing details

[schoolvolunteer]

I'm ashamed to say that I had never heard of this and am absolutely appalled that medical professionals could have carried out this butchery. The reasoning behind it too, to allow the women to be pregnant again and again and "suffer" the rite of a painful childbirth in accordance with a religious doctrine. Irish womanhood has not been served well by the Catholic church.

Please be warned that the details are excrutiating to read and relate to a procedure used during childbirth that left many women crippled and in pain. I would not have wanted to read this if I was pregnant. I think this is akin to FGM.

link here

I also had to stop reading the article, the practice is hideous. Poor, poor women.

Not going to read, as I can work out from the name exactly what the procedure is. Which country did it happen in , please?

Ireland

More here.

Utterly barbaric.

I feel sick reading that, those poor porr women.

I needed a csection because my labour wasnt progressing and I had my first baby in 1990. I'm only 48, so if it was still going on in 1992 there's still a lot of women alive that this happened to.

Good god, that article from the Independent is heartbreaking, Artisan. Absolutely barbaric.

Oh dear god

My heart goes out to these poir, poor women

They weren't doctors, they were bloody torturers. They must really hate women.

I've never read anything as awful since FGM.

How can that be done in the name of religion? Barbaric, like something form the dark ages. THose poor, poor women and children.

I've seen one, in Uganda. It was the only option at the time.

And to continue, it's still taught as a possible manoeuvre to resolve shoulder dystocia. We covered it in my midwifery degree in 2006.

Any chance that the doctors involved might now face charges - civil or criminal? Their behaviour was monstrous

Won't read the link as I find the story too upsetting. My late mother suffered this horrible experience during the birth of my oldest brother. She nearly died, my father was actually told she had and drove an hour to the hospital only to find she was unexpectedly still there. DM was left with a trade mark waddle walk and she later experienced incontinence ending up with a colostomy bag. She subsequently went on to have three c/s anyway.

Looking back with my adult eyes I can see that this all had an effect on her self confidence as well as her physical health. I firmly believe it also contributed to other health issues she had.

It was only when this story emerged a number of years ago that she found out the reason behind it and obviously found the whole thing very distressing. She had not realised that other woman had been subjected to the same, that it was a policy and not a last resort measure to save lives. Although a life long mass goer she always had a very jaundiced view of the hierarchy in drumcondra and their attitudes towards women and was left very bitter by the realisation that she had suffered so much because of the misogyny of mc quaid and his cronies.

Sorry to hear about your mother elliephant what an amazingly strong woman she must be to have come through that experience. How terrible that she only learned later that it was not a "last resort measure". Her jaundiced and bitter attitude is understandable.

I can't believe that this was still being practiced in 1992.

HarderToContact under what situation was it used in Uganda? Is it used as a measure to save the mother's life or is it used as a last resort to save the baby's? I can't imagine that the recovery is "good" if the medical facilities are poor. Were you aware that is was used in Ireland so recently?

I have heard of it - think it's mainly used in the developing world in situations where CS is not a safe option. Obviously sometimes it is a necessary evil, where it is the best clinical option available. The awful thing here is that it seems to have been used to preserve women as breeders, prioritising that over health and wellbeing. Horrific.

Awful to hear about your mum, elliephant.

If I am reading the article properly - and please don't read this post if you are delicate in any way - it isn't only bout Thr procedure but about the treatment afterwards, Thr pelvis wasn't bound but left to heal with a gap to facilitate delivery next time, whereas I would imagine last resort procedures such as the one in Uganda would be treated and the break encouraged to heal as best it can.

I may have that wrong though as I knew nothing about this a couple of hours ago.

Yes Rhonda it's the whole practice from start to finish. They were treated like slabs of meat, good Catholic meat born to breed. None of the interventions were neccesary in anyway and nothing was done to heal the bones as like you say, to facilitate delivery next time although this was counter productive as most women never recovered and couldn't have children again.

Jesus. I had never heard of this. Those poor poor women.

Dear lord. Irish women have paid the price, over and over, for Eve's supposed sin.

Those poor, poor women. I'm glad they got heard at last :(

Horrific

I can't read it. I read the second link but only got to the 3rd account in the first. Jesus fucking christ. Simply outright torture, no other name for it. Those women were brutally tortured.

The catholic church (and frankly lots of others but they are the ones here) have a HUGE amount to answer for.

Those poor women. Anyone who questions whether strongly religious people have women in mind when they advocate for this, that or the other restriction to women's rights as human beings in the name of "the babies" need to fucking read this stuff. Mind you, they'd probably get some ideas.

I made myself read it because you have to, right, if you can, because this is what happened.

The doctors if any are surviving need to be prosecuted NOW.
The women who are surviving, any children or family of babies who died or were damaged due to denied sections need to be compensated NOW.
The church leaders at all levels in Ireland and Rome need to apologise unreservedly NOW.
And women's human rights including reproductive rights need to be enshrined in International laws all over the shop IMMEDIATELY.

Women are still being tortured, mutilated, denied access to reproductive health, denied access to reconstructive surgery, you name it. It is NOT ON.

The world needs to take a stance on this shit like NOW.

I had only read the first couple of sentences of that article before I closed the page. How is it better than CS? Very upsetting.

I can't believe this was happening up to 1992! I have had 3 natural births and suffered severe SPD. I still have a lot of pain and my pelvis moves about. I recently had an MRI to see how bad the damage was and they are talking about me having a procedure to fuse the pelvis back together. It gives me chronic pain, difficulty in walking, constipation and a waddle when it is bad. And mine is only loose! How did these poor women walk and have more pregnancies after that procedure!