Medicine has saved countless lives, including women’s. But it’s also worth asking who shaped the tools, procedures, and standards that still define women’s healthcare today.
From Pap smears and IUD insertions to childbirth interventions, many of the women routinely undergo were developed or popularised by male physicians and surgeons. That doesn’t automatically make them bad; many are life-saving, preventative, or medically necessary. But it does raise important questions about whose comfort was prioritised when these procedures were designed, tested, and adopted, and why women’s pain has so often been underestimated or dismissed.
Keep reading to learn more about some of the uncomfortable medical procedures women undergo and how they reflect the history of women’s healthcare.
1. IUD Insertion & Removal
An IUD is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, but getting one placed means your cervix gets clamped and stretched open so the device can be threaded through. That clamping is often the most painful part, triggering sharp cramping and even a drop in blood pressure.
2. Endometrial Biopsy
Doctors use this to check for abnormal bleeding or uterine cancer: a thin tube gets pushed past your cervix to scrape a tissue sample off your uterine wall, and most of the time, it’s done with no anaesthesia at all. The cramp that follows has been described as brief but blinding.
3. Hysterosalpingogram (HSG)
This is a fertility test that checks if your fallopian tubes are blocked, and it means dye gets pushed into your uterus through a catheter. The pressure of that fluid stretching your uterine cavity causes sudden, deep cramping, worse if a tube is actually blocked.
4. Pap Smear
This is the routine screening test that catches cervical cell changes before they turn into cancer, and it means a speculum holds you open while a soft brush or spatula scrapes a cell sample from your cervix. The scrape itself is usually just a quick pinch, but it lands right on top of the stretch from the speculum, one after another, in the same few seconds.
5. Cervical Biopsy & Colposcopy
If a Pap smear comes back abnormal, the follow-up is a scope that examines your cervix, then small forceps punch out a tissue sample to check for precancerous cells. Doctors themselves call the biopsy step the most painful part of the exam.
6. Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure (LEEP)
This removes precancerous cervical cells before they can turn into cancer, using a heated wire loop to slice the tissue away. You’re numbed first, but the numbing injection is often what hurts most, with pain scored as high as 7 out of 10 in studies.
7. Mammograms
This is the standard breast cancer screening every woman is told to get regularly, and it means your breast gets flattened between two hard plates with up to 45 pounds of compression force. It’s been linked to bruising, and in rare cases, even implant rupture.
8. Transvaginal Ultrasound
This gets a closer look at your ovaries and uterus than a regular scan can, using a rigid wand inserted and pressed against your pelvic walls. It’s routinely called “mild pressure,” but plenty of women describe being told to “get over it” when it genuinely hurts.
9. Dilation and Curettage (D&C)
This clears your uterine lining after a miscarriage, abortion, or heavy bleeding by forcing the cervix open and scraping the inside. Even with local anaesthesia, the scraping leaves a raw, aching pressure behind.
10. Hysteroscopy
This inspects the inside of your uterus for fibroids, polyps, or other issues, and it means a camera goes through your cervix after your uterus is inflated with gas or fluid so the doctor can actually see. Inflation is what causes the intense cramping and bloating.
11. Sonohysterography (Saline Infusion Sonogram)
Similar to an HSG, this checks for polyps or fibroids by pushing saline through a catheter into your uterus during a vaginal ultrasound. It’s called “mild cramping,” but one clinical trial recorded an average pain score of 6.8 out of 10.
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12. Pelvic Organ Prolapse Pessary Fitting
For women dealing with a shifted bladder or uterus, this hard silicone ring has to be fitted deep inside the vagina to hold things in place. It usually takes two or three attempts with different sizes before a doctor gets the fit right.
13. In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) Egg Retrieval
This is the step in fertility treatment where a long needle passes through your vaginal wall directly into your ovaries to collect eggs. You’re sedated for the procedure, but once that wears off, the puncture sites leave deep soreness and bloating that can last for days.
14. Manual Uterine Fundal Massage
Right after childbirth, this is done to help your uterus contract and stop excess bleeding, and it means a nurse presses firmly into your abdomen. It’s so widely dreaded that nurses themselves have a nickname for it: the “devil’s massage.”
15. Manual Vacuum Aspiration (MVA)
This hand-operated suction procedure clears the uterus after an incomplete miscarriage or during post-abortion care, and it’s one of the most common procedures women in Nigeria go through. Studies from the region put significant pain rates at 80 to 98%, with some patients calling it the most painful thing they’ve ever experienced.
16. Contraceptive Implant Insertion & Removal
This small rod gets placed under your arm’s skin to prevent pregnancy for years, and insertion is usually straightforward. Removal is riskier: the implant can migrate near a nerve, and there are documented cases of failed removals leading to numbness and surgery under general anaesthesia.
17. The Speculum Exam
Before any biopsy, swab, or Pap smear can happen, this tool has to be opened inside you, just so a doctor can see your cervix. Clinics call this “just pressure,” but the medical literature on speculum design itself admits some women describe it as agonising.
18. Cervical Biopsy & Colposcopy
If a Pap smear comes back abnormal, the follow-up is a scope that examines your cervix, then small forceps punch out a tissue sample to check for precancerous cells. Doctors themselves call the biopsy step the most painful part of the exam.
19. Childbirth (Labour & Delivery)Â
This isn’t just one procedure; it can involve lying on your back for labour, urinary catheters, epidurals, forceps or vacuum-assisted delivery, episiotomies, stitches, and manual uterine massage after birth. Depending on how labour progresses, many women experience several of these interventions during a single birth, many of which were developed or popularised by male physicians.
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