Hi MNHQ,
This article: amp.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/dec/28/vaginal-health-post-partum-maternity-rectocele struck a chord with many MNers this week and started a thread of women telling their stories about birth trauma, a lack of information before and after birth, a lack of compassion or understanding when they did seek treatment (if they even felt able to - some posts talked about women suffering in silence, too embarrassed to seek help), and general dismissal from many medical professionals about this all-too-common issue. This is the thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3125584-Impact-of-birth-injuries-prolapse-etc?
It got me (and many others) asking why postpartum care is so bad in the UK? Why, if the medical establishment in France is so pro-active in helping women recover from birth, is the NHS so disinterested? When the NHS does acknowledge its existence, why are British women being told, by and large, to suck it up, to get on with it, to accept that this is life? In the thread there are some pretty graphic descriptions of what women are being told to get on and live with - and it's not pretty.
MN had a campaign to address the treatment of women post-miscarriage and shone a much-needed light on the issue. This is another issue relating to women's health, one affecting many thousands of British women annually (if the statistics in the article are correct), and it deserves our attention and could, if successful, really help British women in future. Birth trauma is simply not talked about. Prolapse is not talked about. I wasn't remotely worried about those things when I was pregnant, because no one told me it was a risk - and a pretty big one at that. The possible outcomes of childbirth should be talked about, should be known by all pregnant women, and physical therapy should be available to all, to catch those who have been injured early on. It would even make financial sense to do so - and we all know how important that is these days for those holding the purse strings.