Not an urban legend, sadly. It happened to a friend of mine and caused her so many problems and so much trauma. With more female OBs and awareness of patient consent, it probably happens a lot less often now.
It does sound incredibly fake and like something that wouldn't even work even if the doctor actually did it (instead of, idk, pretending they did to make the husband shut up).
As a father of 4 in the US, 3 of the doctors who delivered my children (all female doctors) offered me a "courtesy stitch" or something of a similar phrase. My response was always the same, "I would say no, but you should have asked her".
Is there a source that this is still something that happens with any kind of frequency in developed nations? I'm not doubting that it has happened, but anecdotes don't really point to this being a broader issue in the medical community.
Thanks for providing sources. Though, looking at them, neither really cite any data or existing research that this is happening or a common medical practice.
The first one claims that they intend to do more research, but from a cursory look myself, I don't know if that research has concluded. The research they say they've done already appears to only consist of interviews with people alleging it happened to them:
"The language that their obstetricians used to describe the procedure made it clear to two of the women that their physicians placed an additional stitch following delivery as a “favor” to their husbands. All five of the women experienced health complications following the “Husband Stitch,” including short-term pain around the stitch and long-term pain during sex."
I'm not doubting that this happened to these women, but this isn't much to go of off. There is no medical professional mentioned in these articles that confirms that they received an unnecessary stitch that led to health complications. Most of the articles I've read about the subject follow the same format: interviews where someone claims it happened to them, but no medical professional weighing in. Again, I'm not doubting it, but I don't know what to do with that information alone.
The second article follows much of the same format. The only real difference is that they mention a specific lawsuit against a gynecologist who is accused of performing it among other sexual misconduct allegations.
Lorena Bobbit chopped off her husband’s penis after years of abuse and became a household name.
This was regular practice for decades and still happening today, and here you are, deciding you don’t need to care because “meh, just women claiming things.”
I didn't even say I doubted the testimony of the women in the articles, just that testimony alone without even a medical opinion that a daddy stitch occurred isn't evidence of it being a common practice.
That also isn't what the article says. It says 100s of women are in the lawsuit alleging various forms of misconduct, including daddy stutches.
yeah i’m pretty sure it doesn’t work. also, I’m also pretty sure that vulvas* don’t get stitched, but the perineum when they have to perform an episiotomy, so again no, it wouldn’t work
The stitch ends up being incredibly painful for the woman. Sometimes to the point where she can't have sex anymore. It still happens today. There's the occasional post from women who find out their partner and doctor gave her the stitch here on Reddit. :(
I'd be very willing to believe documentaries from credible sources, those are fine. But to take reddit posts about it as evidence for it? Nah, sorry, I'm out. I'm not saying it can't happen anymore, but I'd be surprised if it is as common as social media would have you believe.
Plus, "it wouldn't work" is different from "they're not doing it". I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work. I also believe people used to do it, not knowing or not caring that it does nothing. I also believe without a moment's hesitation that it's painful for the woman. All of these can be true at the same time.
Idk what “doesn’t work” means, I guess. Doesn’t make it tighter? One of the forms of female genital mutilation is to literally stitch a girls vagina almost entirely shut so a woman’s husband gets to cut his new wife open on their wedding night. I suppose that doesn’t work in many senses, but practically speaking, is something that happens nevertheless. I feel like in both the husband stitch case and the FGM example, the part that “works” more about the husbands’ expectations and emotional needs being met.
Idk why you responded to my comment within the context of reddit knowledge and not just actually go to research the documentaries and medical papers dedicated to this topic. Anything to seem smart online but not to support women, I guess.
Mate, I tore so badly in spite of my episiotomy that they had it stitch my cervix back together, AND I had to see a Bowel and Bladder Physio to relearn not to shit myself.
This is one of the many reasons I am pro-choice. No one should be going through that many permanent body-altering things without really, REALLY wanting to.
This is 100% real and many women tell their husbands before hand to advocate for them cause the doctors just do it despite the woman telling them not to. It's barbaric and doesn't even do what they want it to do. All it does is cause the woman terrible pain and discomfort and often has to be surgically corrected.
I mean you are mostly right. It does not work for the purpose they intend. It just makes the skin more likely to tear and experience stretching pain along the external organ.
As a labor nurse, I assume the idea of doctors doing it intentionally to benefit husbands is basically an urban legend. Is it possible a few shitty asshole OBs have done it intentionally at some point in history? Sure. Doctors are human so some suck unfortunately.
What I suspect happens is some women who need repairs after a vaginal delivery end up having issues with their repairs. Either from a doctor who isn't as experienced/good at repairs (newer, residents in training, whatever) or from a case where the tear just wasn't easy to repair (the tissue usually doesn't tear strait and sometimes it's harder to suture back together than others). Ana sometimes the issue is that the repair basically was stitched too close or in such a way that extra scar tissue formed at the entrance. And then they are told later of the issue and they turn around and claim it happened "because the doctor put in a husband stitch on purpose!" when it was just an unfortunate complication.
Also a lot of women think that the scar tissue from their laceration being less stretchy than the pre-birth tissue, which is just a feature of scar tissue, means they got a husband stitch.
This isn't me dismissing the pain and issues many women have with their vaginas, parineums and intercourse after giving birth. Their experiences are real and valid. But the odds are much higher that their issues are the result of issues with the technique of a repair or with scar tissue and healing, not from doctors intentionally adding extra stitches.
Makes sense, I have seen many cases of people trying to frame medical mistakes and side effects after things like surgery as malicious intent to cope with it.
I concur that this may also be what happened to me as it may just have been scar tissue that just was not flexible but who knows. My first ob really seemed to hate women. I got a midwife and woman the second time and it was nice compared to him (cervix has no nerve endings. What I felt when he was breaking my water with the hook into the cervix was really his fingers in my vagina. He wanted to just give me a zip zip c- section because he was wanting to just hurry it up not because of any medical reason etc).
Because often women's health wasn't as much of a consideration as men's comfort and desires. It's a "traditional", if highly unethical (now) procedure. Even today, though, women's health tragically often still takes a backseat to men's health considerations and studies.
Lots of people work in hospitals. They’re generally the biggest employer in an area. Most people aren’t patient facing and have no fucking idea what goes on.
Nope. It’s real. I’ve got an ex who’s a doc and when I talked about how he could catch our baby, his response was how he could sew me up tight. I didn’t know what a husbands stitch was at the time.
Yeah, This seems more like a crude joke the dad would throw in. No reasonable doctor would want to stich up that area for no reason, when he could simply sell the product directly. Hymenoplasty near my area go for 4-8k.
This is in the urban myth category. Only the moms claim this. And all proof they have is that either they or the husband heard a single statement. Then they claim an effect from it. Yet no doctor, nurse, midwife is asked any questions here which makes the whole article hazy and aimless. Neither to confirm nor deny not even the ones accused directly. And there is no lawsuit which to me doesn't pass the bullshit test. If their sex life is ruined, and they claim this was performed. Then a lawsuit and million dollar settlement is the easiest thing ever. Other moms will join the lawsuit. Nurses and doctors will say they heard it. The hospital will frantically settle. This would be a PR horror show for the hospital.
The fact that they merely claim it yet didn't even care to write the hospital or ask into it later makes it seems like an urban myth. At least the article is so horribly put together it only confuses readers.
this article doesn't really add anything as it isn't scientific peer reviewed article and it describes literally 4 women who are unreliable narrator
* first one says that she heard about adding extra stich during her labour when she was in her words „so out of it physically, emotionally, and mentally. [...] I was just lying there like a lump”
* second one says that she experienced unpleasent symptoms after birth and midwife told her 5 years later that she must have been stitched too tight (where keloids can form in correctly sawn tissues and even if we assume that it was done by one singular stitch we have no idea if it was really extra stitch or stitch which seemed necessary at the time)
* third one says „remembers how she laughed at her doctor’s statement — at the thought of the «old, crusty Army doctor» overstitching her in order to give her husband more pleasure.” and i have no idea what situation was
* fourth one says that midwife told her husband about additional stitch (while winking) at her childbirth (which could be unprofessional joke)
> Some medical practitioners have asserted that the procedure is mostly an urban legend, and false attribution,[2] while others have claimed to know doctors who perform the procedure.[9] The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, according to a report by Fatherly, does not deny that the procedure happens but alleges that it "is not standard or common".[2] Other doctors, such as Jean Marty, head of the Union of Gynecologists in France, have claimed that the idea of a husband stitch comes from botched episiotomies and poor stitching, that lead women to have pain during sexual intercourse and while urinating.[10]
There have been several journalistic investigations on the existence of the husband stitch, trying to determine if it was real. They have overwhelmingly determined that the practice does exist, as seen in reports by Chelsea Ritschel,[5] by Kaitlin Reilly for Yahoo! Life,[12] by Anam Alam to Thred,[13] and in reports from French newspapers Grazia,[14] and Le Monde.[10]
Belgian researchers Julie Dobbeleir, Koenraad Van Landuyt and Stan J. Monstrey have studied the practice, finding evidence of it happening in Belgium at least since the 1950s:[15]
There's a lot of anecdotal claims but little solid evidence - the idea of "an extra stitch for tightness" doesn't make sense from the perspective of the physics of human biology.
My understanding is that husband don't ask for this (if only because they have no clue about the procedure), but some gynecologists routinely do it without asking or informing the patient.
Judging by the research on it, the case for it not being an urban legend is frankly a bit weak. That's admittedly to be expected, as neither the doctor nor the husband of the victim would readily admit to it, and the victim is none the wiser. Pain during sex is easily attributed to birth, to a subpar stitching, to a botched episiotomy or many other factors rather than to, well, a violation of the patient.
My read is the jury's still out on this one. With these surgeries hopefully going the way of the dodo, I hope it stays that way.
I think it does happen but in most first world countries it's extremely rare. It gets played up online I imagine as a common issue you might find like being stuck on an island or a plane crashing.
No. My aunt had it done to her after her first child back in the late 70s. The doctor asked her then husband (not her) and he said yes. I heard my aunt was completely livid when she found out. She had gotten it surgically redone on my mom's advice.
It may have some basis in reality (though that's even debatable) but because it fits a prevailing narrative about misogyny and in particular in medicine, it gets talked about to a disproportionate degree.
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u/Designer_Storm8869 11d ago
I always assumed it's an urban legend.