Suffering from anal incontinence and gas from the episiotomy suffered during her childbirth, singer Amy Herbst is asking for $ 2.5 million.
Suffering from unwanted gas is never easy to live with, but when this digestive disorder prevents you from practicing your profession it becomes a real handicap. This is the dire situation that Amy Herbst, an American opera singer, is currently experiencing and for which she is claiming $ 2.5 million in damages from the Nashville hospital. Indeed, the 33-year-old singer accuses the doctors who gave birth in February 2012 of being at the origin of her forced retirement.
According to her, the episiotomy carried out without her consent that day, certainly to facilitate the passage of her baby, would indeed be the cause of the flatulence from which she suffers uncontrollably and which above all prevents her from exercising her profession. . According to her, this intervention, which consists of making an incision between the vagina and the anus, in the perineal zone, would have badly healed, causing irreversible damage to her anal sphincter. In addition, Amy Herbst would also have daily pain, again because of this episiotomy. A surgeon interviewed by the Daily Mail explains that a new operation could in part “repair the damage, but that would not eliminate the flatulence, other interventions might be necessary”.
Consent not always requested in France either
In France, while it has long been practiced systematically, it is now estimated that 35% of women have an episiotomy during childbirth. In 2005, the National College of French Obstetrician Gynecologists (CNGOF) published recommendations in which it noted that there were no proven indications for systematic episiotomy and proposed to target an overall rate of 30% of episiotomies instead of the 47% observed at the time.
A survey carried out by the Collective interassociative around birth (CIANE) and published in November 2013 on 9,783 vaginal deliveries, of which 6,300 since 2010, attests to the effort made by the medical community to modify its practices. The episiotomy rate was 30% over the period 2010-2013 (47% for a first childbirth, 16% for the following ones). In addition, according to the CIANE, women feel they are better informed about this act, even if, in 85% of cases, consent is still not requested. On this point, the group recommends that measures be put in place so that the request for consent is effective and respected for all women. The 2002 law on patients’ rights specifies that “no medical act or treatment can be performed without the free and informed consent of the person.”
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