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Now to a major investigation into the rising number of women suffering injuries in childbirth. Sky News has analyzed data from NHS England finding a 25% rise in women who experienced a third or fourth degree tear in the past 5 years. Our health correspondent Laura Bundock spoken to one mother who suffered a third degree tear about the lasting impact the injury has had on her life. The report does include descriptions of injuries suffered during childbirth. Sometimes when I remember the feeling, I will like a physical shudder comes over my body. I think anyone does when I tell them the story.
We first met Megan 36 weeks pregnant and preparing for her second child. 3 years ago she gave birth to her son Roman. It was a low-risk pregnancy. That changed when she went into labor. I can still remember the feeling of his head reaching like crowning. And I just got this huge like my body did it for me urge to just push and I did and I can remember the feeling of the tear from my like from the start of vagina all the way down to my perineum and I remember the feeling of it actually ripping open and screaming. Um but the midwives didn't say anything. They didn't say stop or they weren't coaching me.
They just weren't there ready to catch him. Megan has suffered a third degree tear. They usually require surgical repair and follow-up care to restore continents. It's still relatively rare in childbirth but is becoming more common. Around 1 in 35 women or 2.9% who gave birth in England in the last year had a third or fourth degree tear compared with 1 in 43 or 2.3% in 2021. That's an increase of 25%. Higher rates of tearing are associated with birth instruments like forceps. In 2024, one in every 15 births in England, around 6.7%, was assisted with forceps compared with 1.2% or one in every 85 in Norway. And rates of third and fourth-degree
tears are 70% higher in England. The childbirth injury charity MASIC estimates one of the most severe types of tears costs 50,654 pounds, which includes things like health care, counseling, and loss of earnings for mothers and their partners. When taking legal claims into account, this figure rises to 464,000 pounds per injured woman. I wasn't told about how to recover from such a surgery and a tear. So, I did a lot of my own research in the end. When I got back from the hospital and realized what I needed to do, I self-referred to the physio um to try and get my pelvic floor back um back intact, which eventually I did, but it took months, like up to 9 months to feel physically back to normal.
I feel like I missed out on the newborn stage of my son because I was so sad and so traumatized and in so much pain with what had happened. A recent NHS report found tears were wrongly categorized in 58% of cases, with women who'd suffered severe third- or fourth-degree tears being initially diagnosed with lower-grade tears. The chief midwifery officer for NHS England, Kate Brintworth, has told Sky News the NHS is taking action to transform care for pregnant women and their babies, including introducing new clinical standards to reduce avoidable
harm, targeted support for services that need to improve, and work to tackle unacceptable inequalities in care and outcomes. It can be really lonely and really traumatizing, and just to have that humanity and somebody just ask if you're okay and, you know, and what they can do for you next and explain what's happening to you at the time. This is actually somebody's life. This is going to change somebody's life forever. They're going to remember this day forever. So, it would be really nice just to be treated like a human.
Laura Bundock, Sky News. If you've been affected by the story, do contact the Samaritans. You can do so at any time. The number 116 123, or visit the website samaritans.org. Tonight, we'll have a special edition of the UK Tonight on the state of maternity care. Sarah-Jane has been at University Hospital Coventry this week and will present the show live from there, speaking to families, expectant mothers, midwives, and other NHS staff. If you'd like to share your maternity experience with us, please do send an email maternity sto***@***.uk.
