I'll probably be accused of invalidating women's feelings but this is an example of how "listening to women" about their birth experience could lead us astray and lead to worse, not better, care. The author of this piece experienced a vaginal tear during a water birth at home. This was assessed by a midwife using the torch from a mobile phone to be a first degree tear, which was then repaired at home by the same midwife. She has continued to experience problems and pain for years. Doubtless this is very distressing and I have empathy for that. The author says she wasn't given the option to not repair and believes she would have had a better outcome had she not had the tear repaired. So is this an example of over intervention and lack of informed consent causing harm? IMHO, most unlikely. In fact, it is more likely the mobile phone torch wielding midwife wrongly assessed the tear, which was far more serious than appreciated and may well have been so because of the water birth (one of many pseudoscientific practices implemented and encouraged within NHS maternity care in the name of patient choice but without adequate evidence base). What might have made a difference to the outcome? Medical assessment and repair in a sterile environment with medical lighting by a doctor with substantial surgical training and experience. We must not allow listening to patients to be an excuse to not adhere to the principles of science and evidence based medicine or to allow unproven quackery a free pass into our medical care.