Another thing to note is that the episiotomy itself is no longer a recommended procedure for routine births. The incision lengthens recovery time and brings complications of its own.
Unfortunately, medical violence is a thing and many professionals, even when saying the episiotomy is a decision for the woman, put it in such a way that the message conveyed is that the episiotomy makes giving birth easier and quicker. What is witheld is that it makes it easier for them.
Giving birth was turned into a surgical event, when it is only a phisiological one.
Speaking as someone who would have been stillborn if not for a C-section, there are some surgical procedures that are kind of important.
A C-section is a surgical act and extremely important as it has the potential to save lifes, both of mothers and children.
The matter at hand is not about deeming all medical acts performed during a delivery as useless but to acknowledge that many are performed routinely without need and even without the agreement, previous information or consent of the woman and mother to be.
One such is that oh-so-important act being routenily abused, with doctors pushing it to women with the argument that it is the safest way to plan the delivery. But planning a delivery is only a concern for the physician. If a pregnancy is normal under all aspects and there are no telling signs the delivery will be complicated, why point women to an unnecessary surgical act?
Giving birth was turned into a surgical event, when it is only a phisiological one.
How can a woman give birth without the machine that goes PING?
I was under the impression it was forthe woman’s benefit, that it is easier for a cut to heal than a tear. Is that not the case? Is the risk of tearing overblown?
I think you actually have that backward. In general, a jagged tear heals quicker than an incision because there is more surface area in contact between the two pieces, so a larger number of cells can be working to repair the tissue. That said, I’m not a doctor and it’s been 10 years since my wife and I looked into this before our first kid, so I may be misremembering.
These days, an epesiotomy is done to direct the tear. If the tear is allowed to happen spontaneously, it can go through nerves, arteries, and pelvic floor muscles, greatly increasing the chances of permanent problems with things like prolapses or fistulas at worst, and more commonly, long term problems with incontinence.
Nope, you got it right: my wife had to c-sections and afaik they cut just enough tissue to make possible to tear it apart. It healed very well.
It’s not about the surface area, a tear heals without creating a straight line of inflexible scar tissue in flexible tissue. You recover faster and better, because you distribute the new connections throughout the tissue, you don’t have this one rigid perforation to tear, so you don’t have to be healed up all the way before you can get back on your feet
In general, it’s the opposite though - a sharp cut heals much faster than a rip, there’s far less damage to repair
