To look at Karen Browning taking her children to the park, you would think she was the picture of a healthy young mother.
But the truth is that every step she takes causes her agony through her pelvis, bottom and legs.
'It's hard to explain to people just how much pain I am in,' says Karen, 26.
'It's hard to explain to people just how much pain I am in,' says Karen, 26.
She has had a fractured pelvis for more than three years. But this didn't happen because of a car accident - it occurred during childbirth.
Karen Browning from Ballybeen, Northern Ireland with her sons Saul, 3, and Cohen, 2
Karen's problems started when she was five months pregnant with her first child Saul, now three. She began getting a stabbing pain in her pelvic area and reported it to her midwife.
'She told me all first-time mums-to-be got twinges and that it was normal,' says Karen, a full-time mother from Dundonald, Northern Ireland.
But as her pregnancy progressed, the pain worsened and was sometimes so bad she couldn't get out of bed.
Six months into her pregnancy, she went to her GP who explained that, as the body prepared for labour, the ligaments loosened so the pelvis could 'open up' for birth - this could lead to a condition called pelvic arthropathy, or pelvic girdle pain, a common problem affecting one in five pregnant women. She was told the pain would vanish after childbirth.
Painkillers were not an option because of the potential harm to her unborn child.
'My mum had to ask for a wheelchair for hospital appointments as I was in too much pain to walk. My partner had to lift me on and off the bed. It was hell,' she says.
After the birth of her first child Karen saw her GP four times, only to be told her pain levels were 'normal'
By the time Karen went into labour, the pain was acute. 'I explained I had severe pelvic pain and would have trouble pushing. I couldn't even climb on to the delivery bed. But the midwives made me feel as if I was a silly girl,' she says.
Despite her pleas, Karen was told to push. 'I had gas and air, but the agony was unbearable. Every time I bore down, I felt as if my pelvis would snap.'
After an hour of pushing, a doctor recommended a forceps delivery. After two attempts, Saul was born. But he had breathing problems and was taken to the special care baby unit.
After two days, he was allowed home - but Karen, still in severe pain, was in hospital for a week. Just holding Saul was agony.
Over the next three months she saw her GP four times, only to be told her pain levels were 'normal after childbirth' and she didn't need treatment.
Karen was referred to a physiotherapist, who taught her pelvic floor exercises and gave her a belt to support her back, but nothing helped.
Then when Saul was eight months old, Karen discovered she was pregnant again.
'Instead of feeling elated, I was terrified - not of labour pains, but because of my pelvis,' she says. 'This time the pain was even worse.'
After Karen gave birth to her second son, Kohen, she regularly went to her GP.
'I knew there was something very wrong and that my pelvis was damaged in some way, but no one would listen. I lost count of how many times I asked for help,' she says. Finally, when Kohen was six weeks old, she changed doctors and was sent for an X-ray.
This revealed she had a fractured pelvis - and that the fracture was two-and-a-half years old - the same age as her first-born Saul.
The doctors could tell how old the fracture was from the way the bones had set.
'I was stunned. I'd been walking around on a fractured pelvis for more than two years. I was furious. Why had it taken so long for someone to believe me?'
Karen believes her pelvis was becoming more damaged during pregnancy and that the rough delivery caused the final fracture.
'I knew there was something very wrong and that my pelvis was damaged in some way, but no one would listen. I lost count of how many times I asked for help'
She has since seen a specialist surgeon who has said that if she had been referred to him immediately after birth, he could have helped her by putting pins in her pelvis, but now there is nothing that can be done.
Her pelvis has set in the way it was when the fracture took place, leaving her in constant pain.
'I go to the chronic pain clinic for painkillers, which I take every day and some days I have to use crutches,' she says.
'I go to the chronic pain clinic for painkillers, which I take every day and some days I have to use crutches,' she says.
She's also suffered a prolapsed womb as a result of lack of pelvic support, and is on antidepressants.
'I've been told I will be in pain for life, that nothing can be done. I can't walk some days. I can't play with my children. Some days I can't even get them dressed.
'I believe that if I'd been listened to at the start this could have been avoided.'
A woman knows her own body and can tell when it is not 'one of those things', says Joe Aquilina, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital.
And while fractures such as that Karen suffered are rare - as well as pain there would usually be warning signs such as needing crutches - if a woman does experience severe pelvic pain, she should be assessed and considered for a caesarean delivery.
'Sometimes, because a woman is pregnant, things get fobbed off and not given the right importance,' says Mr Aquilina.
'The trouble is we don't do X-rays in pregnancy because of dangers to the foetus, so often the real cause can be missed.'
Karen takes painkillers every day and some days she has to use crutches. She's also suffered a prolapsed womb
When Kate Beddard, then six months pregnant, suddenly experienced searing pain in her hips while running for a train, she assumed, like many women do, that it was 'normal' in pregnancy.
Kate, then 26, was working as a nurse - 'I knew ligaments softened in preparation for childbirth, so I thought I'd just pulled a ligament,' she says. But within three weeks she could barely walk. Her GP put her on bed rest.
The pain worsened and a week later she was admitted to hospital; she needed a walking frame just to go to the bathroom.
Doctors kept telling Kate all would be well once the baby was born.
'They kept trying to discharge me, but I kept refusing. I was a trained nurse and knew something was very wrong. The pain in my hips was agony,' she says.
She remained in hospital and five days before her due date, she was induced. She was given an epidural, but after the delivery - which was rushed, leaving her baby, Hannah, with a broken collarbone - it wore off and the pain hit Kate like a brick wall.
'It was much, much worse than before the birth,' she says. 'But the doctors told me to "concentrate more on my baby and less on myself". The general feeling was that I was an over-anxious first- time mum and that pain was par for the course after childbirth.'
Fractures such as that Karen suffered are rare but if a woman does experience severe pelvic pain, she should be assessed
A day after the birth, a consultant sent Kate for an X-ray, which revealed a fractured hip. At first she was told it might be bone cancer. Numb with shock, Kate began writing a will and talking to her family about her funeral wishes.
Eight days later a consultant told her she didn't have cancer. Six weeks after Hannah's birth, Kate was diagnosed with pregnancy-associated osteoporosis.
This condition, when the bones weaken, is rare and usually occurs only in a first pregnancy. It is thought some women may need extra vitamin D and calcium.
Kate was kept in hospital for three months, had pins placed in her hips and was told the fracture would knit together.
But this did not happen and it was the start of a long and arduous ordeal, leaving her with arthritis and one leg much shorter than the other because her femur had become misshapen through walking on it.
'I was told I had the bones of an 84-year-old,' she says.
At last, in 2012 - 24 years after her fracture - Kate, now 51, had a hip replacement and can now stand for longer.
Like Karen, Kate believes doctors are too eager to fob off pregnant and post-natal women when they complain of serious ligament or bone pain.
She believes that if she had been listened to during her pregnancy, though her fracture might still have happened, she would not have had to endure so much trauma and distress.
'I've met so many women who had fractured their hips or spine, but were not listened to because the professionals believed pain was normal during and after birth.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2593673/Pelvic-pain-years-childbirth-Pregnant-women-told-ignore-pelvic-pain-lead-long-term-damage.html#ixzz2xge2VmaI
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