I must say after 3 kids and tearing and stitches each time I don't feel any different down there either. Sometimes I feel a bit achey but thats it. Must start doing those pelvic floor exercises...

When it comes to looking back to the past in terms of pregnancy and birth I feel we should be careful not to romanticise how things were. The fact is the maternal and neo-natal death rate was much higher then than now. This can be attributed to many reasons, and not necessarily the rise of obstetricians or hospital births, I do appreciate that. But as someone whose first birth was induced due to pre-eclampsia, I also appreciate the fact that had I been pregnant and given birth 100, or even just 50 years ago, I would have faced the very real possibility of me or my baby dying. I am not an advocate of blanket intervention but it definitely has its place.

As for breech birth, I have read comments that the skill of breech birth has been lost over time, but I don't believe that this skill was any more prevalent in our mothers and grandmothers time than it is now. I have no doubt that there were those who could do it but I believe we are lucky now that we have the option of a (clean, sterile) caesarian if our babies are presenting breech. My great grandmother gave birth to her first baby, a son, in the 1920s. We are talking 80 odd years ago. He was breech and in order to birth him, the doctor broke his legs. The baby died. Maybe this was a exeptional case, I don't know. But it makes me feel grateful that I live in the modern world where we can take it for granted that we will have access to clean hospitals and modern medicine.