Do you agree with this statement regarding pain and child birth

[user6767]

Chatting to a few friends tonight about child birth. One of them made a statement that I had never really thought about before but I can definitely see her argument.

She basically said it's wrong that women have to bear the pain of childbirth. When for nearly all other invasive/painful procedures we would be given pain relief as standard. She pointed out whilst we do have options like epidural these are not standard and in the UK in particular a 'natural birth' is seen as ideal. Also that she thinks if men had to give birth there would already be many more pain relief options available by now.

I thought it was a really interesting view point. Wondering what others think?

They offered me an epidural - I turned it down.

I wasn’t allowed to be alone for 24 hours after having minor surgery under a local, but was fine to care for newborns immediately alone

It's ridiculous

@MistressOfEvilMaleficent your experience sounds completely hideous - and unacceptable.

It does seem odd to me that if I have a headache I would take a painkiller but for pushing a human out of my vagina it’s seen as ideal to “pass”.

@MuchTooTired

I also agree. Admittedly I don’t know the pain of a vaginal birth as I had an elcs, but the having to justify why I wanted one was ridiculous. And having had major surgery to deliver two children, I was then left to my own devices to care for them whilst being unable to move.

I wasn’t allowed to be alone for 24 hours after having minor surgery under a local, but was fine to care for newborns immediately alone 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's this that shocks me. Due to covid, you can't have partners stay overnight so you're effectively left by yourself looking after a baby having just had major surgery!

I agree, and it extends to all women’s issues. And I say this as someone who had a drug free home birth and intend to again.

I agree with her, always have. There are no medals for giving birth painfully.

However, ideally we need something better than an epidural. They may have improved since I had one, but my recollection is that the after-effects weren't great. At least when I had DC2 (totally natural because there just wasn't time for an epidural) I could immediately be up and about and get on with life.

Childbirth although it may be a choice for individual women is not a choice really for society and women are voting with their feet and not having babies in the uk, with possible disastrous results (or excellent results for the natural world) depending on your view points. We have already medicalised childbirth and unwittingly made it harder by allowing small pelvised women to give birth successfully via c sections or interventions when previously they would have died. And their offspring have inherited small pelvises so the problem is self replicating. Birthweights have gone up, due to better nutrition etc. So giving birth is getting (in general) harder for each generation. Less of us are dying sure, but only because of interventions. Left to our own devices loads of us would die. There is every reason to believe that pain of childbirth is worse now than further back in evolution. And its unsustainable. If we want women to have children and as a society we do, we have to make it good for them, from sorting out our maternity care to providing mothers with job security. If we don't we are buggered.

I agree, women’s pain is dismissed massively in the NHS. Whether that be child birth, periods or injuries related to child birth.

My sister had to collapse twice in pain on her period, as in unresponsive and needed blue lighting to hospital before she was taken seriously

When I gave birth to my children, the hospital didn’t offer epidurals. Thankfully they do now.

It was the most barbaric pain I’ve ever experienced (I’m sure no one would disagree, well you’ll get the odd one that’s says ‘My perfect birth was like the perfect orgasm’ BS)

But yeah, it felt like I was going to die. It’s a very scary feeling, as you’re in no mans land in extreme pain and they’re shouting ‘push push’ and you can hardly breath because of the pain.

But childbirth is a natural process, not an invasive surgery or medical process. Sneezing is natural, getting cramp in your foot is natural (and also bloody painful) but you don't get pain relief or gas and air for those. People also have different pain thresholds which I appreciate.

Yes of course if there are complications then you would need analgesics. And before anyone says, yes, I have given birth. Twice, one hospital, one home, both complicated (home far more so but no pain relief for either apart from a TENS for a while with no.1). It is damn painful and traumatic but that's what it is. I'm not a hippy earth mother btw.

Sits back and waits for abuse...!

If someone needs pain relief, they should have it.

I wouldn't want epidurals to be standard by which I mean, nobody should have to have an epidural if they don't want one. I wouldn't have wanted an epidural. However, pain relief should be available, as long as it is safe and doesn't cause labour to go on longer.

Many women give birth fairly easily without the need for any type of analgesic. I don't think it is something about which you can make up your mind in advance, best to see how you go when the time comes. If you are having your baby in hospital, as long as there are no complications, don't go in too early in labour; contractions are better managed while you are still on your feet moving about and doing other things.

Goodness me, that brings back memories of approximately thirty+ years ago :-). With first, I went into hospital when waters broke and she was born two hours later. Second one I had at home which was really nice.

With both, drugs and gas&air were available had I wanted them.

Human childbirth is painful because, as a pp said, it’s an evolutionary fudge. No-one designed us.

Humans evolved large brains (and therefore heads) and bipedalism, both of which are huge advantages. In order to deliver large-brained offspring without pain, women’s pelvises would need to be wider, but this would make walking on two legs impossible. The evolutionary compromise is premature birth and helpless babies, as well as dangerous, painful delivery.

There’s no reason to accept that the pain is natural, therefore better. There’s no good reason for the pain.

The advantage of having big brains is that we can come up with ways to solve problems like painful, dangerous childbirth. I’m sure if it were taken seriously enough, new, safer methods of pain management could be researched and developed.

@ahoyshipmates

They offered me an epidural - I turned it down.

Is have shoved it in myself if I was offered one…

@MotionActivatedDog

On the other hand I do wonder why giving birth is so painful, humans have pain as a warning that something is wrong ie infection or injury. But with periods and babies I dont get why whoever designed us made it painful for us!

I’ve always wondered this. It doesn’t make sense that childbirth is so painful. It’s not necessary to the outcome. What other natural processes where nothing is wrong are painful? Other than periods.

Not everyone would describe it as painful though. I would describe it as intense. But comparable to other intense Heath things. Like a fever. All body fever. Or having bad constipation. So pain is the best word but not close enough to it. It’s more like intensity.

[quote Fifthtimelucky]@MistressOfEvilMaleficent your experience sounds completely hideous - and unacceptable. [/quote]
Fofthtimelucky I was 24 at the time, DS's father was on military deployment so I was alone.

Thank god for my mother and grandmother who picked me up from the hospital, took one look at me bundled me in to a car and didn't leave my side for 2 weeks post birth and helped me so so much. 4 generations in one house, we pulled through.

I had pathedine for my my first, made me dizzy, gas and air for my second.
I don’t like the ideas of needle in my back

Yes I completely agree, and in fact said this during labour (well probably less articulately, but I definitely said “this is barbaric” between breaths of gas and air).

I fully support the idea that women should have as much choice and control over childbirth as possible. And I also feel that I’d love science to give us some more options.

I ended up using pretty much every pain relief option available to me. Started out optimistic that a tens machine, some paracetemol and deep breathing would help. But about 5 contractions in I couldn’t cope. The start of my labour was incredibly and fast midwives reckoned baby was back to back.

Had pethidine which felt like it did nothing for the pain, just was out of it. Gas and air I took but again it felt like it had minimal impact on pain levels. Water bath helped.

But baby wasn’t coming out, ended up with an 8 hour second stage, and the feeling (or lack of it!) when they gave me the epidural (after fully dilating and nothing happening) was blissful! They controlled the level so I could still push. My daughter was born in theatre, prepped for an emergency c section, but delivered by forceps. They confirmed the angle of her head was such she couldn’t have been born without intervention.

I also had a post partum haemorrhage and I’m sure I was in shock!

I was lucky in that I felt I had the best support, felt listened to and was lucky not to be denied any of the services I needed. But gosh, if I could have had anywhere near that level of relief from the epidural much earlier in labour, I think I’d have felt less traumatised (and maybe not automatically rule out giving birth again!).

And again, realise that childbirth isn’t surgery, but found the difference between my experience and previous hospital stays drastically different: the contrast in speed with which pain/discomfort is addressed and the ability to recover and recuperate were marked differences for me.

Gwlondon, I agree it is intense towards the end, also understand your comparison to constipation. As a younger person I did have constipation quite a lot; it stood me in good stead when I was in labour first time because I felt as though I had done it many times before for most of my life.

I had an epidural for my first, and elective (medical reasons) c-section for my second. No problems when requesting either (and no other interventions needed with the births). I've never joined NCT or had many mum friends, so I think I've been spared some of the peer pressure about childbirth options.

I've never felt pain with smears, coil insertions etc so I also think I have a high pain threshold. But I never saw the point in waiting to see whether I could manage childbirth pain, just seemed simpler to go straight for an epidural.

I totally agree. I had to beg for an epidural for hours and was furious I had to go through that. I said right from the word go I did not want a natural birth and was just ignored.
I had to really kick off and threaten legal action to get one and I hate making a fuss.

@gogohm

Why should any invasive procedure be standard? Epidurals aren't risk free! Childbirth unlike other medical situations is a choice. I had no pain relief and it honestly didn't hurt that much, it's not an acute pain and you get something wonderful. I gave birth in the USA and could have had whatever I wanted, even an elective c-section but I preferred not to.

Oh big hand clap to you.

100% agree with your friends statement OP. It's abhorrent what so many women go through or believe they have to put up with to birth a human.

Intervention can prevent death, life long anatomical trauma and psychological damage.

It's about informed choice. And having proper choice.

I don't see the point in making epidurals "standard". The solution to natural childbirth being overly idealized is not swinging the pendulum the other way.

An option that's fully accepted, with access available both to appropriate discussions on benefits/risks considering the mother and baby's risk factors and the means to have it, sure. That that isn't how things work is something that misogyny and the natural fallacy has come into. That there aren't better options is possibly more a research limitation (having known men and women who've had harsh after-effects from them). Bodies are complicated.

Standard as in the typical route for all mothers, what's expected to be part of birth? No. It has benefits, sure, but it also raises multiple risk factors and those risks should be considered on a case-by-case basis with the mothers who want it.

Having ended up needing a general after being forced to have the "standard" after-birth injection resulted in a terrible reaction more painful than the labour I had just been in (followed by another medical fuckup that ended with needing a manual removal), I'm wary of making interventions standard without recognizing the limits and risks of them that are made very clear to everyone. Some over play them, some dismiss them entirely (I literally had a midwife bloody sing 'the homebirthers getting an epidural', which was concerning that a medical professional didn't know I was in no position while bleeding so much for that without considering my disabilities).

Some of these are hard to research, but women are worth better than an ideological position that one way or the other is automatically better for everywhere rather than different options with pros and cons.

@gogohm

Why should any invasive procedure be standard? Epidurals aren't risk free! Childbirth unlike other medical situations is a choice. I had no pain relief and it honestly didn't hurt that much, it's not an acute pain and you get something wonderful. I gave birth in the USA and could have had whatever I wanted, even an elective c-section but I preferred not to.

While it’s wonderful that this is true for you, for many women childbirth is still not a choice.

Yeah, even before I went through childbirth myself I always said the same thing. Then I went through a horrendous induction (during covid so on my own) and they wouldn't believe me when I wasn't coping with the pain - they wouldn't even give me gas and air because I wasn't in active labour apparently . By the time they finally checked me hours later and realised I was nearly fully dilated it was too late for an epidural and so the first time I was offered even a sniff of gas and air was when they were pulling the forceps out (because my baby was in distress surprise surprise). I was so angry afterwards. Nobody should be made to endure that without pain relief - they don't even pull a tooth out without anaesthetic. And having spoken to a lot of friends with pretty similar stories it's obviously a huge problem.