2023-12-16 10:00:00
While some women seem in Olympic shape after childbirth, for others, a long cycle of pain begins. According to a new study relayed by Version Feminathe consequences of this event on health would still be largely underestimated.
The duration of labor varies greatly from one woman to another. From the first contractions until the baby’s arrival, a first birth lasts on average seven hours, more than 24 hours for some women, explains Solenn Vinot, private midwife in Nancy, in the Women’s Journal. Once the baby is born, some women may find themselves confronted with many negative thoughts and emotions, as well as a series of pains linked in particular to the cesarean section or episiotomy, depending on the case.
This event, often described as the happiest day in a mother’s life, can also trigger post-traumatic stress syndrome, generally caused by a medical problem occurring during labor (emergency cesarean section, fetal distress), bad experience with medical staff or even gynecological violence. Its complications among many others which persist beyond birth are “largely underestimated, insufficiently recognized and declared“, alert the authors of a new study published on December 6 in the scientific journal The Lancet.
One in three women suffer from health problems after giving birth
According to this study carried out by theWorld Health Organization, long-term health effects caused by childbirth may be more common than estimated. The WHO, which recalls that infant mortality still affected 287,000 women in 2020, estimates that nearly 95% of deaths occurring in low- or middle-income countries could, for the most part, have been avoided. The article in question, the third in a series of four articles on maternal health, reveals that at least 40 million women across the planet, or one in three young mothers, are not immune to complications. postpartum. Even more pernicious for women, “ces Postnatal conditions that persist in the months or even years following delivery represent a high burden of morbidity.warn the authors.
What are the most common pathologies?
According to the study, the most common pathologies are sexual, with 35% of women suffering from dyspareunia, or pain felt during and after sexual intercourse. Other complications are as follows: low back pain (32%), urinary incontinence (8 to 31%), anxiety (9 to 24%), anal incontinence (19%), depression (11 to 24%). %), tokophobia, i.e. phobia of childbirth (6 to 15%), perineal pain (11%) and secondary infertility (11%). This medical term refers to the inability to carry a pregnancy to term after giving birth to a first child. Less common, other conditions such as organ descent, post-traumatic stress disorder, thyroid dysfunction, mastitis, nerve damage, psychosis or even peripartum cardiomyopathy, which causes an increase in the volume of the heart before childbirth.
Limited postnatal care services
In order to allow better management of these medical problems, the authors of the article insist on the importance of offering women “good quality care at birth, systematic clinical assessments, postpartum screening to identify those at risk, and prompt treatment” to avoid lasting health problems. According to them, postpartum monitoring should extend beyond six weeks, as currently recommended by theHealth Insurance In France.
For the researcher Pascale Alloteydirector of the Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health at WHO cited by Version Femina, policies and clinical research must do more for maternal health. “TThroughout their lives, and beyond motherhood, they must have access to a range of services provided by health care providers who listen to their concerns and who respond to their needs so that they can survive childbirth but also enjoy good health and quality of life”, she insists. In France, medical follow-up after childbirth consists of two mandatory appointments: an early postnatal interview between the 4th and 8th week after childbirth, then a postnatal medical consultation between the 6th and 8th week.
You may also be interested in:
⋙ What is hypnobirthing, this fashionable birth under hypnosis?
⋙ The comb, the ideal tool to reduce the pain of childbirth?
⋙ Fight against cancer: these women have their ovaries removed during childbirth
1702722189
#Childbirth #real #trauma #womens #health