Hi there

This might be a question for the midwives - I'm currently doing the childbirth education classes at my maternity hospital and they showed us the stats for the month of July. There were only 15 intact perineums, and 66 were either unsutured tears (I remember it was 11 for that category), sutured tears or episiotomies. I was quite shocked by this and asked if this was a "bad" month - to which I was told it was actually pretty good, and better than June.

The one thing that does worry me about labour is tearing/episiotomy. I always believed that since a woman's body is designed to give birth, tearing or episiotomy would be the exception rather than the rule, rather than the other way around, and that I would be "unlucky" if this happened to me. So I'm feeling a bit unsettled at the thought that it's quite unlikely I'll get through labour with an intact perineum - at least, according to those stats!

So...my question is - does perineal massage really help? I know they say they have no hard scientific evidence that it does, but I thought the midwives out there might be offer an educated opinion or some anecdotal experience...?