Healing After Birth: Severe Perineal Tear Recovery Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe recovery from severe perineal tears, from births that felt calm, fast or ended in forceps to the moment someone said third-degree and nobody explained what it meant. Writers describe the repair in theatre, the catheter, the first bowel movement approached with dread, laxatives, the ring cushion, and feeding a baby while unable to sit. There is the six-week check that came too late, stitches that broke down, infections and a second repair, and the endoanal ultrasound that finally explained the urgency and incontinence. Writers describe pelvic floor physiotherapy and biofeedback, a nerve stimulation implant, returning to running and to sex, and the slow work of trusting the body again. Contributors include partners, a midwife who became the patient, women resting in postpartum care centres and forty-day confinement traditions, farmers and office workers back too soon, twin and VBAC births, and a fistula. Later chapters cover choosing a caesarean or another vaginal birth next time, prolapse, birth trauma, the group chats that kept people going, and what the writers now tell new mothers.

Who it's for

For anyone recovering from a third- or fourth-degree tear, those deciding how to give birth next time, partners, and midwives and physiotherapists who want to hear what follow-up feels like.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 239 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.