Millions of Women Are Injured During Childbirth. Why Aren't Doctors Diagnosing Them?
Cosmopolitan, July 2016
Childbirth is one of nature’s most wondrous but biologically brutal feats. For nine months, a woman’s muscles and bones bear the increasing weight of a baby that isn’t even slightly ergonomically positioned. During a vaginal birth, muscles and other tissues stretch and often tear as something the size of a cantaloupe is forced through an opening that is normally about the size of a carrot. According to a recent spate of studies, a disturbing number of women quietly endure incontinence, painful sex, back aches, and crippling pelvic pain for years after giving birth because of undiagnosed and untreated childbirth injuries.