Those who haven’t given birth before might be lucky enough to have avoided hearing the phrase ‘the husband stitch.’
Others might’ve only heard it thrown around as a joke or mentioned offhandedly on ‘mummy blogs’. But for many women, this childbirth ‘myth’ is very real, very painful, and completely devastating.
The husband stitch or ‘daddy stitch’ – if you want to be even more disgusting – refers to an extra stitch given by doctors after a vaginal birth.
You guessed it: for no other reason than to make the vagina tighter for the pleasure of males.
While the term has been around for years, it wasn’t until this week, when US website Healthline published an in-depth article, that many realised how common the procedure actually is.
“For many women, the husband stitch is not a myth but a terrifying reality,” Healthline’s Carrie Murphy writes, revealing that one woman’s doctor said to her husband: “Yeah, let’s go ahead and add in another stitch so we can make sure this is nice and tight.”
Another woman didn’t found out she had been given the extra stitch until five years later, following years of “excruciating” pain during sex.
“I felt betrayed because something unnecessary was done to my body that I didn’t ask for,” Angela said. “It was a harmful decision made without my consent.”
“The fact that there is even a practice called the husband stitch is a perfect example of the intersection of the objectification of women’s bodies and healthcare,” Stephanie Tillman, a certified nurse midwife at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said of the procedure.
“As much as we try to remove the sexualization of women from appropriate obstetric care, of course the patriarchy is going to find its way in there.”
It’s recommended women write a detailed birth plan to avoid decisions being made at vulnerable moments.
Read the full Healthline article here.
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