Midwives Breakthrough in Maternity Care

A newborn baby can bring great happiness to its family - but for some new mothers the joys of childbirth, can be tempered by the experience of perineal tearing.

During childbirth up to 35 per cent of women may experience tears to their perineum, the skin between the vagina and rectum. Such damage can have long term consequences for women's health unless properly assessed and treated.

Now a researcher from the UK's University of Birmingham has co-developed a device to significantly improve the maternity aftercare of many new mothers - an invention that could also help lead the way in forensic investigations.

Alison Metcalfe, of the University's School of Health Sciences, and five midwives from Birmingham have developed the Peri-Rule, a tool which measures and assesses first and second-degree perineal tears, which can often cause long-term problems for women, including incontinence and general discomfort.

The Peri-Rule enables midwives to make a more detailed and objective assessment of the severity of damage so they can make informed decisions for further treatment that may be required, which should lead to a reduction in the number of women that have severe damage missed. Because the Peri-Rule can be sterilised and used to measure and assess other types of wound and tissue damage, it may help in measuring wounds in forensic science to reduce the risk of contamination of important evidence.