Just to reassure you girls that even though half of all women giving birth to a baby also 'give birth' to something else (all that pushing down there)this will be the only time in your life when you don't care that you've just pooed in public. before i gave birth, this matter worried me much more than pain, but i promise you, dear fellow parcopresis sufferers, you do not care at the time. the midwife just wipes it away immediately and that is the end of that. also sharing a toilet with 5 other mums on my ward was not a problem. i just took a magazine with me and stayed in there as long as i needed to and was not even embarrassed. i think that when one is ill, one is allowed to poo without shame