Daily Mail, Thursday, August 8, 2019 Page 47femailMAGAZINE 47
W
hen my husband
and I moved to
France in 2000 with
our one-year-old
daughter, Olivia, I
learned an awful lot about the
cultural differences between our
two countries from my new
mum friends.
not only, it appears, do French women
not get fat, but they also don’t become
incontinent after childbirth.
The row this week over Tena incontinence
pants being advertised to new mothers
brought it all flooding back to me.
nurses complained that the adverts
suggested it was ‘inevitable’ for new
mothers to suffer from incontinence, and
that we should just put up with debilitating
physical problems — an attitude I’ve found
is all too common in the UK.
But in France, I soon found, this idea is
anathema. Which is why, two weeks after
the birth of my third child, Leo, I found
myself in a new physiotherapy clinic in the
town of Pezenas in southern France.
here a good-looking young man called
nicolas pulled on a white glove, and put
his hand into my nether regions to check
how much muscle control I still had.
‘hmmmm. not bad for three children,’ he
told me. ‘Sometimes they squeeze and I
can’t feel a thing.’
he then inserted something that looked
a little like an instrument of torture. It was
attached to a box that gave me small
electric shocks and showed a pattern on a
screen I had to follow by squeezing my
muscles in time.
nicolas was my local physiotherapist,
and this process, known as perineal
retraining, is geared to getting you ‘back
into shape’ postpartum.
It is possibly the most excruciatingly
embarrassing thing you can go through,
but every French woman I know who has
children has done it, and swears by it. After
20 sessions over the course of ten weeks, I
was pronounced fit and ready for action.
This was all paid for by the French state,
as in France everyone pays compulsory
health insurance. This entitles you to a
magical card called the carte vitale, which
gives you more or less free access to what
is, according to the World health
Organisation, close to the best overall
healthcare in the world.P
ATIenTS receive 100 per cent
coverage for maternity care. For
some treatments and medicine,
the patient pays up front, but is
more often than not reimbursed by a
combination of the state and yourI don’t blame the nhS for that
part, though. The message from
everyone, including the midwife
and my GP, was to go the non-
epidural route, but ultimately it
was my choice.
Young and misguided, I opted
to do it nature’s way. I do, however,
blame the nhS for the aftercare,
or rather the lack of it.
A pair of incontinence pants
would have been a luxury. As it
was, I was shoved on a ward for
hours, in pain after being badly
torn by the birth. The following
morning, I was sent home.
I asked what I should do about
the fact that I couldn’t sit down.
I was advised to buy a child’s
swimming ring and sit on that.
‘What about all the tears?’ I
asked. ‘They’ll heal naturally,’
was the reply. ‘And breastfeeding?’I said. ‘You’ll get the hang of it.’ I
didn’t get the hang of it, and after
two days my nipples were as sore
as my bottom.
I went through countless tubes
of nipple balm before I got used
to the onslaught.
In France, they do things
differently. I found this out
quickly, because I was seven
months pregnant with our second
child, Bea, when we moved. In
hindsight, it was a crazy time to
move house, let alone country.
We had barely settled into our
home in the Languedoc when I
discovered that it wasn’t just a
question of turning up to the
local hospital and announcing
you were pregnant. Instead, you
choose an obstetrician who sees
you through the whole process.
On the recommendation of afriend, I picked the Dashing Dr
Denjean, as he became known in
the family.
he was not only handsome, but
made me feel looked after and
comfortable. As did the hospital,
which had the appearance and
feel of a boutique retreat.
On the first visit, Dr Denjean
put in place all the arrangements
for an epidural. I made a half-
hearted attempt to suggest that
I could try a natural birth again.
‘Why?’ was his response.
‘Isn’t it better?’ I asked.
‘Better for whom, exactly?’
I think this is one major
difference between the UK and
France, dictating many of the
differences in care. In the UK, the
baby definitely comes first. In
France, the attitude is very much
‘happy mother, happy baby’. As itturned out, the choice of whether
to have an epidural or not was
taken out of my hands. On my
third visit Dr Denjean broke the
news to me that the baby was en
siege — breech.
he said I could risk a vaginal
birth, but his suggestion was
that I have a Caesarean. he
warned me that it might mean
any future children would need
to be born by the same method.
At the time, a future third baby
was the last thing on my mind. I
opted for the Caesarean.
The night before, I was shown
into a single room with an ensuite
bathroom and TV. It was like
being in a hotel. I was woken up
in the early hours of the morning
by my contractions.
As the memories of the first
birth came flooding back, my first
thought was: ‘Thank God I’m not
going to have to do that again’.N
OT only was the birth
itself about as pain-
free as childbirth can
be, what happened
afterwards was a revelation.
On the day of Olivia’s birth in
the UK, I’d had nothing to
sustain me but half a KitKat
until the early evening, when I
was offered sliced white bread
and Marmite.
This was in stark contrast to the
three-course meal I was given
after Bea’s birth, consisting of a
goat’s cheese salad starter, salmon
steak with pommes dauphinoise,
and creme caramel.
having had a Caesarean with
Bea, I didn’t have the pleasure of
the full French aftercare system.
That didn’t happen until a few
years later, when I found myself
back in the hands of Dr Denjean
for the birth of Leo (who, as it
turned out, did not have to be
delivered by Caesarean), and
subsequently, nicolas and his
electronic probe.
Leo’s birth was the easiest of all
three. This time I wasn’t naive
enough to forgo the epidural, and
had three midwives attending.
After the birth, most of the focus
seemed to be on getting me back
into shape and making sure I was
all right. having now comprehen-
sively tested both systems, there’s
no doubt that the French have a
far better approach.
That’s not to say the French way
is perfect. While I’m all for the
‘happy mother, happy baby’
attitude, vanity also gets in the
way. I remember one woman
telling me her aim while pregnant
was not to put on a gram more
than the baby weighed.
Overall, if having children in
France is any indication of how
they treat those in need of health
and social care, I think I might
move back for my retirement.
O Helena FritH Powell is
the author of love in a warm
Climate, published by Gibson
Square at £7.99.mutuelle. The mutuelle acts as a
top-up for the state healthcare.
So, for example, if you are on a
hospital ward, the mutuelle might
cover the cost of a private room.
Unlike in the UK, where private
health insurance is astronomically
expensive, the cost of a mutuelle
can be as little as €20 a month.
It was all in stark contrast to
my experiences at the hands of
the nhS when I had Olivia a few
years earlier. I had been
encouraged by medics to have a
‘natural’ birth, which entailed
spending several hours squirming
around in a pool of lukewarm
water like a tortured whale.
Anyone who has been through
childbirth will know that it takes
more than some tepid water to
dull the agony of contractions,
not to mention the searing,
burning pain of the actual birth.by Helena
Frith Powell
As new mothers here are targeted by incontinence ads, a writer
who’s had postnatal care on both sides of the Channel says...
If only every
woman was
able to give
birth like
the French
In good hands: Helena and
baby Leo. Above, Tena pantsПОДГОТОВИЛА
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