The skincare brand breaking pregnancy taboos for women everywhere

My Expert Midwife is embracing the realities of childbirth in all its painful and messy glory, CEO and founder Lesley Gilchrist tells Martin Friel

Gilchrist grew fed up with the tendency to infantilise pregnant women (My Expert Midwife)

Let’s talk about vaginal tearing.

Why? Because nine out of 10 women experience everything from small, skin-deep tears to deep, traumatising wounds whilst giving birth, but there is a growing movement among childbirth professionals and laypeople to hide this reality, to pretend it doesn’t happen.

Despite calls for greater transparency and communication to expectant mothers about the reality of giving birth (including from the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists), there is a vocal and influential minority who believe that talking about the reality of giving birth is unnecessarily traumatising for women. Catriona Jones, a lecturer in midwifery at the University of Hull, is one such example.