A couple are suing a gynaecologist, claiming surgery he performed after the woman gave birth, left her vagina too tight to have sex.
The woman delivered a baby boy in September 2010 and was given an episiotomy by Dr Guy Bolduc in CHUL hospital in Quebec, Canada.
The procedure sees a doctor or midwife making a cut in the woman’s perineum (the area between the vagina and anus) to widen the opening during delivery, the NHS explains.
Dr Bolduc noted an internal vaginal tear after the baby was born and performed surgery to repair it, the Toronto Sun cites the lawsuit, filed in Quebec’s Superior Court on 29 August, as stating.
The paper reports Dr Bolduc advised the 36-year-old woman to avoid sex for six weeks to allow time for healing.
But the plaintiff was unable to have penetrative sex until more than a year later and claims she still finds it too painful, despite prescriptions of vaginal estrogen cream and exercises with a vaginal dilator.
A second doctor, the suit alleges, found "a fairly rigid strip of scarring and narrowing of the vagina preventing penetration," according to La Presse.
The woman is seeking damages of $225,000 and her husband wants $75,000 for pain and suffering.