Is this normal it seems barbaric

[Streppy]

Woman next to me in hospital is contracting has been all night but not far gone enough so they are sending her home for a bit. She’s been screaming crying all night every ten minutes and throwing up. They have reluctantly offered her some morphine during the night but she’s still been screaming. I’m due to give birth soon currently in for observation and I can’t believe how they can leave her in this much pain is this normal. Her partner has had to be with her all night to try help her is this going to be what I have in store she’s been like this since yesterday afternoon/evening why aren’t they giving her pain relief it seems barbaric she’s asking for relief and they’ve offered paracetamol. My birthing plan was basically pain relief and not to have much pain I’m so worried now about giving birth.

I think this woman has probably got herself all stressed and anxious, that can make pain feel soo much worse if you are panicking.
I had 2 births first one induction and second natural and both times found it was no where near as painful as i was expecting, I had gas and air and hypnobirthing. Id do it again with no worries.

Do these things actually work? I was in so much pain with contractions I was passing out in between them. Literally passed out, woke up at the top of the pain for a few seconds, passed out again. And I’m not a softie. I’m usually pretty tough but about pain etc. I was induced so apparently that can make contractions stronger (?) and it all went from zero to 100 in about 120 seconds contraction wise. They started then bang they were awful. No build up. I couldn’t have breathed through the pain if i tired.

Yes, perhaps the lucky lady will be offered a birthing comb to dig into the palms of her hands, aromatherapy or sterile water injections rather than given adequate pain relief.

I haven't read the whole thread but I just wanted to add that I have had 3 big babies. I got through it with gas and air and it was painful but totally manageable and fine. I may be very weird but I felt very empowered and wouldn't be scared to do it again. Obviously seeing this lady when you are about to give birth is very anxiety inducing so I just wanted to offer another perspective.

Of course she should be given adequate pain relief 🙄 As I said in my second post.

My post was about the fact that everyone is different and the OP shouldn't assume her labour will be exactly like that of another woman. The OP has no idea how much pain the other woman is in as you can't compare pain, and as we handle/cope with pain differently. Therefore, OP should not be afraid based on experiences of others (which is something she mentioned).

I didn't comment on the "failings" of this particular maternity ward in (not) giving pain relief. I didn't give birth in the UK and reading all these traumatic accounts I'm rather glad of it.

That's an awful thing to say. Great that gas and air and hypnobirthing worked for you, genuinely. Perhaps if your baby was in the same position as this woman's, or your pelvis was shaped like hers, or the strength of your contractions was the same as hers, you would have been screaming for morphine and an epidural.

There can't be much more misogynistic than criticising a woman for how she handles childbirth.

Completely agree with this and my experience was very similar. Regular contractions for the entire 30+ hours and the level of pain for 70% of that was the same up until the very end. Nothing to do with pain threshold, some people just go through more pain than others. I have two close friends that had relatively short labours and neither of them needed any pain relief at all!

Not normal ime. I've had epidurals for all 3 of my births and felt no pain at all. It was fine.

Some labours are more painful than others.
My first was 30 hours, back to back labour with a big baby. Yes, it was very painful!
But I know other people who had quite low levels of pain and easy births.

With my second I knew I wanted an epidural asap and had to be very assertive about getting it. Basically as soon as I got to hospital my partner and I both requested an epidural from everyone we interacted with and refused to get sidetracked. The squeaky wheel gets the oil in the NHS and you can't afford to be meek or passive unfortunately.

The epidural was amazing by the way and I highly recommend! I had straightforward vaginal births with no interventions with it.

Nobody who hasn't been through labour is prepared for labour.

Partly true, it was like nothing else I've ever experienced, but I'm glad I learned breathing exercises and a few visualizations (hypnobirthing stuff if it was classed as that) beforehand. Without them I would have been utterly overwhelmed.

I was trying to give the OP positive birth stories! Do you think all the stories people are posting here about feeling like they were going to die are helpful to OP who will give birth herself soon? Whys it OK for people to share horror stories with pregnant women but not OK for people to share that they had a positive experience!
It's well known your mental state effects how you feel pain

Ahh people, OP doesn't need the horror stories! Speak to one of the midwives about any concerns or worries you have. Just go with the flow and do what's right for you in the moment. I had some lovely midwife with me and as she gently reminded me; you don't win medals for giving birth without pain relief. Then soothed me as I explained I was uneasy with the gas and air as I vomited from it 🤣🙈 She took the time to explain everything to me and was a lovely, constant support. Enjoy your new bundle of joy ❤️

Yes, it must be her fault 🙄

Doesn’t matter how ‘prepared’ you are, no one knows how their labour will go until it starts.

Obs anaesthetist

Sounds like not in active labour. Morphine is the normal strong pain relief for latent phase

Pethidine is for active labour (but a pretty useless painkiller hence we don't use it in anaesthetics, it more just makes you spaced out and somewhat forget the pain but doesn't actually pain kill, and often makes you nauseous

They should be giving her pain killers but certain options like epidurals are only done on labour ward and when either active labour (4cm or being induced)

Yep really pees me off the NCT midwives that scare the hell out of women about epidurals and make them out to be failures if have one

You rarely get anaesthetists give birth without one. And what's the point in being in pain foe the sake of it when beyond gas and air epidurals are by far the safest pain relief option for baby and the only chance of being able to sleep in labour for mum

@Streppy this was also true for me - I found that i HAD to make noise during each contraction, in the same way you involuntarily make a noise when you have a really bad cramp in your leg. If you think about it, each contraction is literally that - a massive muscle cramp.

Yes, i found labour painful, but it was painful in the way lifting weights or running a marathon is painful - i felt i was achieving something.

My advice would be to go into the experience with an open, relaxed mind. Don’t assume either that it’ll be terrifying and awful OR that it’ll be a painless walk in the park. If you can get into the mindset of ‘this is going to be hard work and painful, but it’s not dangerous pain, it’s pain that’s helping me, and if it gets to bad there’s things i can do to help myself’ you’ll feel calmer and more prepared. I always recommend the book ‘birth skills’ by juju sundin - she’s really balanced about recommending relaxation methods without making you feel like a failure if you need pain relief or intervention (i ended up with an emergency c-section after two days of labour and found her advice helpful for remaining zen throughout).

You’ll be fine - good luck!

That's the same for all labour wards - you need to be in active labour or being induced to be on labour ward (there's v limited beds as 1:1 care). Active labour is 4cm

There are some really awful responses on this thread - breath away the pain? Unprepared? Stressed and anxious??? Are people going to start trotting out the too posh to push bullshit next? The experience of birth is completely subjective and therefore completely different for everyone!!!

I hope you’re ok OP, please remember it’s different for everyone and there could be a plethora of reasons for the screaming/being sick.

We most certainly don't give GAs for labour they're very high risk in pregnancy and are a last resort for severe fetal distress csections.

Best evidence is for a good supportive birthing partner (often I recommend female birthing partners as blokes can often be incredibly irritating to their partners as struggle to know what to do beyond repeating "it's OK baby" a million times

Morphine/paracetamol/codeine derivatives/tens machines if not in active labour (4cm)

Active labour paracetamol/ gas/pethidine or diamorphine depending on the trust, tens, water bath, epidural or remifentanil pca if not contraindicated and something that hospital offers

Labour pains.org is the best info source written by obstetric anaesthetists

Tbh giving birth is generally pretty barbaric!

But yes...our hospital care doesn't help provide more dignity. I got off pretty lightly, but even so I called x4 to inform labour ward my contractions were 2mins apart and getting closer together and told not to bother coming in as I couldn't be too far along as I could still speak on the phone to them. In the end we ignored them and just went in...at that point I was less than an hour and a half away from baby being born and waters exploded at reception. All pretty embarrassing. Car journey to hospital horrific.

We were told paracetamol only, then at hospital could have got pethidine or epidural only. I got neither despite begging at one point for epidural (my birth plan always included epidural but midwives kept telling me I was doing to well and didn't need it - not sure it was their choice tbh but when you're in full on labour you can't find the energy to argue or plead your case effectively.

..., don't get me started on the after care (doesn't exist in this country!)

Sounds like my nightmare first labour (again wasn’t listened to or believed/helped either)
but every labour is different so please
don't worry that you may have the same experience.
my second labour was an absolute dream and so easy compared to the first - so even with the same woman each experience is different.

Hard agree!!

I was in (back-to-back) labour for 2.5 days before I finally reached the magical 4cm and was admitted. I consider myself to have a high pain tolerance but I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep nor eat for that time... I went to the birthing centre twice before I was admitted and all they offered me was aromatherapy oils! 😠

Once they finally admitted me, I also found out that my uterus was restricting my bladder (I had realised that I was struggling to empty my bladder, but I was so delirious with pain and lack of sleep, I hadn't realised it was a big deal) and when they catheterised me, drained 700ml!

Even before I was 4cm, I was literally having 60-90 second-long contractions every 4-5 minutes; my body was trying so hard to labour and it just wasn't working.... 12 hours after being admitted (three days of labour by this point!), I had still only reached 5-6cm and DC's heart rate dropped and they rushed me into theatre for a crash section (had been blue-lighted to hospital a few hours before that).

Edited to say that I've run a (sub 4.25 hr hilly) marathon and despite hitting the wall at 20 miles, it was still easier than DC1's labour.

And me. I only reached about 6cm but there was no difference in pain from the 'latent' (I hate that phrase!) phase to being in 'active' labour.

When I rang the birth centre, I got told to try and sleep when I said I hadn't slept for 36 hours. 🙄 Was so exhausted that I did doze off once or twice, but fat lot of good that did when I was being shocked awake every four minutes from the pain.