DM article on birth injuries

[Bowlofbabelfish]

The DM has run this article today. A really well written and sympathetic/outraged look at the problem of birth injuries

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6797199/As-doctors-midwives-finally-act-searing-expos-childbirths-shameful-secret.html

I’m pleasantly surprised at the number of pro-woman articles the DM is coming out with recently. This is an issue that really needs to be talked about more, women are shockingly badly treated during and after birth.

It seems like there are more and more medical problems and birth issues that women and girls are just supposed to accept.

So glad I had a c section. Years later I still suffer from numbness and soreness, but it’s way better than crapping myself. Imo these issues should be publicised because I knew nothing about them before giving birth. If I had known I’d have made an informed decision to have an elective section (luckily I needed EMCS).

I saw this and thought it was an excellent article. Such a neglected aspect of poor medical care for women.

Shows the importance of every woman speaking up & not accepting this. Interesting how one type of injury has increased so much over a 10 yr period.

But we shouldn't be persuaded that caesarean section is 100% safe. It isn't. The whole business is dangerous which is why we women need to be the final arbiter in whether or not the pregnancy continues.

Daily Mail is starting to impress me on women's issues since the new editor took over.

Birth injuries and the care that women receive after birth is so appalling.
This should be a key feminist issue (I for one am looking forward to getting back to concentrating on issues like this once we are allowed to call women "women" again). Women need to be listened to, we should not just be expected to put up with such significant health issues like this, which have such a massive impact on our lives.

Can you imagine if something that 90% of men went through in their 20-30s had such a high hit-rate of life-long health consequences? It just would not happen. It would be a national emergency, with money being thrown at it left right and centre to find ways to stop it.

While it’s great that this issue that affects so many women is being highlighted, Some of the comments from supposed healthcare professionals on that article make me want to rip my own eyeballs out
A midwife saying that it was better when routine episiotomies were performed, whether you needed one or not What the actual fuck?!

That is so shocking. What is really the most shocking is that this type of injury has increased so much. And especially given the fact there is practice that midwives could follow - as in Norway - which would massively reduce the rate of injury (and presumably not only prevent disability / poor quality of life for hundreds of thousands of women but also save money long term dealing with the consequences for the NHS). Women have been failed - it appears applying best practice from other countries could massively reduce the problem. Why on earth isn't it happening?

My injuries were pretty severe but not called injuries until several years later when I saw a (TMI alert) consultant for rectal problems. He used the word "injury" and I could have hugged him. He also said that in his experience, doctors and midwives focussed on the vagina and had little or no idea of the damage they can do to the urethra or rectum. Maybe he was just being kind but it felt like that.

I've given birth to over 33lbs of babies in the last 7 years. I've needed one stitch in total. I know I'm in the minority but it's certainly not the case that routine c-sections or episiotimies would be best for all women. That said, I do think birth injuries should be taken much more seriously in the immediate and medium-term postnatal period. So many friends have had to advocate for themselves at an incredibly high level (most of my friends are teachers, doctors, nurses so articulate women who are in their 30s, which I think makes it easier to push for the birth and aftercare you want). Midwives are, in my experience, great at being for "with woman" by name and nature, but the medical system is still very patriarchal and needs things signing off by doctors despite midwives and mothers themselves being the real experts. Then there are the birth injuries that doctors refuse to fix after the fact until you've "completed your family", meanwhile other departments refuse sterilisations on the grounds women might change their silly little minds, meaning it's hard to prove you have completed your family!

Basically it all boils down to women being seen as big old fusspots that no one, least of all the medical profession, wants to listen to.

An amazing article. Really well considered and researched. Wow, Daily Mail and Caroline Scott. I am well and truly impressed.

I had a 4th degree tear 7 yrs ago when DS was born (they hadn't realised he was back to back, and then he ended up being delivered by forceps as his heart rate crashed). We were both an absolute mess. He is fine now and I am much better off than I could be. Apparently, the surgeon who stitched me up did a good job. I will need surgery in the future, just not yet. I am managing for now with a lower fibre diet and trying to remember to do my pelvic floor. But if I eat Shreddies or porridge or something high fibre like that, I can't leave the house.

You know what, it didn't even occur to me until years after childbirth that my vaginal tearing was an injury. I just thought of it as something that happened.

I got shirty with Zuby the rapper on a thread last week when he blithely referred to (I paraphrase) the tiny health risks involved when giving birth. But to be fair to him, how can he - or any man - be expected to know when we don't talk about it?

Correction - when I don't talk about it.

Thank you to the Daily Mail (something I find myself saying more and more often) for raising this.

There have been countless threads on here detailing injury trauma and traumatic experiences related to childbirth.

We all know that something needs to change. Women keep giving birth and women keep on getting injuries. Something need to be done.

Why are schools really interested in teaching gender identity/ sexuality etc, but not about the cold hard reality of life and how it comes about?

Why are women's issues in the UK brushed over- childbirth, periods, menopause?

I spoke to a physiotherapist recently who told me that she wished every woman after pregnancy had access to physio automatically, but she knew that would just never happen.

Agreed, Sweetheart but with one caveat: midwives are part of the medical system too and in my experience are no better at listening to women than doctors are. Personally I had far better interactions with doctors than I did with midwives. At least the doctors could give me facts and information when I asked the necessary questions, whereas midwives tended to fob me off more and treat me like a nuisance.

In general, the problem is women not being listened to and taken seriously when we say we are in pain or injured.

I’ve had 3 ‘normal vaginal deliveries’ - no stitches needed. But I’ve felt for a long time after hearing so many birth stories that instrumental deliveries need reviewing. Not Denmark has not had any forcep deliveries in 14 years.

In my view of you’ve got to 10 hours with no progress, you need to CS to deliver not get the forceps out.

I suspect epidurals will not be helping as they tend to slow down births and the mother has to deliver on her back after having one.

If you read the article, you’ll see that Caroline Scott first wrote about this subject in 2017, long before the new editor took over. She said that that article received hundreds of responses, so it’s clearly a huge issue that affects a lot of women.

It’s a very powerful piece- I did not realise how often these types of injuries occur. Mine are from cs so slightly different injuries and I’m lucky that physically my day to day life is pretty much normal - psychologically is another matter though!

Ime it comes down to - not being listened to, not being believed, not being treated as an individual, being treated as an inconvenience if you do as much as ask for a paracetamol and generally being surrounded with the attitude that your baby didn’t die so stfu. Mothers’ lives matter too, including quality of life.

Although obviously the 4th degree tear and the physical recovery from the birth was tricky for both of us, that attitude amongst some members of staff your baby didn’t die so shut the fuck up was more what I struggled with...

Being left with the blood transfusion for HOURS and the nurse not bothering to understand that it was so slow because she’d not put it in right and being desperate to see my son in NICU... being told off by a nurse for using a wheelchair to get down to see my son in NICU one day after he was born when I couldn’t walk (the wards were five mins apart for a normal person)... being bollocked for locking the door on the private room they eventually moved us to when I was trying to establish breast feeding...

But for every shit one, there was one who was lovely and helped to get us through it. Even the NICU nurse ended up being nice because she helped us get breastfeeding started when she got us a nipple protector. We were away after that. (She thought I had taken her advice with the wheelchair but I was just ditching the chair outside the ward. I couldn’t walk FFS.)