Sophie Loader has a rare medical condition which means she suffers terrible labour pains every time she has her period.
Sophie was born with uterus bicornis, which means she effectively has two wombs (the womb is shaped like a horn, with two distinct cavities), but one vagina.
While the left side of the womb is perfectly healthy, the right side would fill up with blood each month and trick her body into thinking it was giving birth, Metro UK reports.
The fake contractions sometimes last up to 72 hours and Sophie says it feels like her insides are ‘being ripped apart’.
The 23-year-old, who has a 2-year-old son called Chase, explained: “I’ve been in labour more than 100 times, but only once for real. To say that it’s a pain would be an understatement.
“When I had Chase I was drugged up to the nines for my c-section, so sadly I can’t compare the pain of real labour to my fake contractions.”
Sophie was terrified when she had her first period in her early teens. “When I was 13 and the contractions started, I had never felt pain like it and couldn’t understand what was happening to me, it was terrifying – even the doctor thought I might be pregnant,” she says.
She’s been hospitalised over 30 times because the symptoms are so severe. The only way to control the pain is through breathing exercises, or gas and air.
However, after she had Chase, doctors fitted a contraceptive implant, which means she ‘only’ goes into faux-labour once every three months.
Sophie said: “Being is labour once a month for eight years was exhausting.”
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