“Consent” to a gynecological examination when she consults precisely for this purpose? Not long ago, Anaïs F. (she requested anonymity), followed by “an incredible liberal gynecologist”had trouble seeing the point of it. “At each stage of the auscultation, she asked my consent. For me, it was a bit like going to the bakery and being asked, “Are you sure you want some bread?” » ironically, on the phone, the young woman of 33 years. But, that was before her two deliveries, in 2020 and 2022, during which she suffered, each time, a detachment of the membranes. “without consent”. This act, which consists of separating the membrane surrounding the amniotic sac from the wall of the uterus, in order to cause contractions, is known to be painful. “I experienced it as a violation of my privacy. For me, it was also a breach of my trust.”, calmly says this quality engineer from Vaucluse.
At the beginning of July, it was precisely the use of this term, used to qualify the facts alleged against the gynecologist by profession Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, now Secretary of State for Development, which relaunched the debate on gynecological and obstetrical violence. . In the wake of complaints of rape filed by two patients – which the Secretary of State disputes – the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, seized the National Advisory Committee on Ethics to issue recommendations on consent during consultations. gynecological.
How do women view this issue? Were they confronted with professional practices that seemed to them inappropriate or violent, without their consent? Nearly three hundred women responded, in the space of a few days, to the call for testimonials launched on the World. The stories of those with whom we spoke by telephone do not claim to mirror what is happening in the majority of firms. However, they shed light on the experience of wounded patients that their consent was not required when, according to them, it could have been, or should have been.
“The midwife told me it was normal”
Seven months after the birth of her second child, Anaïs F. took this opportunity to tell. “During my first delivery, I was dilated to three when I arrived at the maternity ward. The midwife gives me a vaginal exam. I have no recollection of her asking for my consent, but I do remember being in extreme pain, telling her, and her telling me it was normal.”she remembers. “I was filled with pain”but “I gave birth an hour later. I didn’t really know what it was, I blamed the pain on labour, childbirth”. After birth, “I didn’t dwell on it more than that. There was the baby, and then it was in full confinement… ”
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