This important policy brief explores the significant issue of pain experienced by women and people with a uterus during sexual and reproductive health (SRH) procedures across the UK.
Women and people with a uterus across the UK experience pain during procedures related to sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This pain can occur during procedures such as smear tests (cervical screening), abortions, intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUD or ‘coil’) fitting, or hysteroscopy.
These procedures are carried out in various healthcare settings from general practice to specialist hospital services.
Pain during these procedures is often seen as ‘normal’ or ‘unavoidable’, meaning it does not always get enough attention. This is partly because of outdated beliefs that women’s bodies are meant to tolerate pain, which can lead to their discomfort being overlooked.
Even though guidelines exist to help frontline health professionals manage procedure pain, many people continue to have very painful experiences during some procedures. In a qualitative survey which we conducted in January 2025 (report forthcoming), 150 respondents told us about extremely painful and distressing experiences.
This groundbreaking report from Dr. Carrie Purcell has 2 recommendations to improve the current situation:
Carrie is a researcher at The Open University in Scotland, with extensive experience of applied and policy-oriented sexual and reproductive health research.