What do Jacqui Lambie, Helen Haines and Queen Victoria have in common? Far too much

October 23, 2026 — 10:30am

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It’s not often vaginal prolapses are in the news. It’s not often they are spoken about in public. Or even, much of the time, in private. They are hidden, swept away, kept quiet. Even though millions of women suffer from them.

Queen Victoria didn’t speak of hers. She had nine children but it was not until she was examined on her deathbed that her doctor, Sir James Reid, found she had a prolapsed uterus, which must have been the source of considerable pain for many years.

As her biographer, I wondered if it was simply stigma that had prevented so many other historians mentioning this, along with a sense that it would be considered impolite, prurient or vulgar to do so. But it makes sense of the last decades of her life: her reliance on strong servants to carry her, her use of a rolling chair, the fact that she sat outside St Paul’s Cathedral in her carriage for her entire Diamond Jubilee ceremony. Little wonder she had a hand-operated lift installed in 1893 in her holiday home – Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

A prolapse may not have been the sole cause of this behaviour – she also had a ventral hernia and rheumatism – but was surely a crucial contributing factor.

I felt for her – no wonder she got so grumpy sometimes. And no wonder she decried childbirth, how it made her feel........

© Brisbane Times