Why hip pain lingers after labour
At 22 weeks into my pregnancy I heard and felt a pop in my left hip and immediately couldn’t walk or stand. By the end of my pregnancy, I needed a wheelchair. The GP was convinced after labour the hip pain would go. She even went so far as to medically gaslight me.
But I was right that the pain and immobility wasn’t normal. My hip pain wasn’t a temporary pregnancy ache, but in fact, a serious hip injury called a labral tear. The labrum, a ring of cartilidge around the hip socket had torn. It needed two surgeries to fix and even now, six years later, I am living with chronic inflammation of the tendons and ligaments around my hip joint, severely limiting how much I can sit, walk, stand and move.
What got me thinking about this issue was how many women are gaslighted into thinking their hip pain is normal in pregnancy, and how many suffer lifelong pain, coping unknowingly with a labral tear that simply wil not heal on its own.
I spoke to Fiona, who was one such mum, for my health investigation in the Daily Mail.