To not understand why 'no pain relief' in childbirth is a source of pride?

[bronya]

I accept that some people hurt more than others when giving birth, but surely, it's not clever to go without pain relief if you need it? If you want it and can't get it, I feel for you. If you choose one variety over another, that is your choice. Equally, if your body simply doesn't hurt enough to need it, then aren't you lucky!

How is the whole screaming in agony for hours on end, a GOOD thing? I just don't see it. Pain relief is available, why not have it?????

Ahem, the best for baby would be elective c-section, no risk of having any birth traumas etc.

Read the tread.

Erm, elective c-section is not best for baby. They receive a lot of vital bacteria on the way out through the fanjo.

(plenty of refs on google)

Elective section is safest for a baby at term (~39 weeks), since you are eliminating all risks of shoulder dystocia, cerebral palsy, suffocation by umbilical cord, etc. There is of course a small risk for the mother because you are cutting into her.

This is not something hospitals will shout from rooftops for obvious reasons, but ask an obstetrician and see what he says.

OP - YANBU. I find the smugness around refusing pain relief in childbirth puzzling, too.

It is no different than being proud of having had a root canal treatment without anaesthesia. Why?

I had pain relief in mine because, for me, it was absolute agony! I do admire women who get through it without anything, through that level of pain. However, not those who would actually avoid pain relief just so they can wear the 'badge of honour' and tell everyone that they didn't need it. That's ridiculous.

I do think some women have a higher pain threshold than others but it's absolute nonsense to make it into some kind of competition. Who really cares, as long as there's a healthy baby at the end of it all.

I've had an epidural birth and a no-pain-relief birth and can see there are pros and cons to each; what annoys me is the Stealth Boast Facebook Announcement: "Baby X, born at home in water after 50 hour labour, midwife couldn't believe I didn't even want gas and air! LOL! Dried off and then did the school run" type-thing!

People are rightly proud of bringing a baby into the world however which way, but I know many people who have had birth experiences so far removed from their original plan that declarations such as the above don't go down well.

Well I have local anaesthetic for root canal but had no pain relief for giving birth. To some women, the two things aren't comparable. Doesn't matter if other people understand that or not- it's just how it is, so I don't know why people who have had pain relief worry their heads about it!
I don't agonise over why some women choose an epidural so it makes no sense for them to worry about why some women don't!!

CotedAzur, you are right about that being the view of most doctors.

Doctors and doctors' wives have a remarkably high incidence of c-section. I know rather a lot of medics and am always struck by this.

janey - The two things are obviously comparable, since they both involve high levels of pain and the choice of pain relief. And you don't get a medal at the end of either for refusing local anesthesia.

Whatever personal achievement you felt when you stood the torture of childbirth without pain relief, you would probably feel it after a drug-free root canal. Maybe something to think about before your next trip to the dentist?

If not, why do you think birth is so different? I'd be interested in your answer.

OP YANBU. But the ones which make me laugh are the ones which claim to have had no pain-relief yet sucked down half a can of gas & air.

"Yeh, in the end it was all natural for me. Just 5 pints and 10 afterburner chasers, didn't feel a thing".

I explained at length earlier on the thread why some women don't find childbirth comparable to root canal or surgery, so I guess if you're interested then you'll read the thread
Yeap, I might feel the same about having root canal without anaesthetic; however I don't feel any desire to do that , and I did feel a desire to experience natural childbirth which in itself tells you that to me, the two things are different. Maybe not to you, but you aren't me. I think your the 'mistake' you are making is in trying to apply your own thought processes to someone else decision about their body and their baby. Like I said, I wouldn't worry my head about why some women choose an epidural or elective csection- I can just accept that it's their experience not mine

Btw, a significant proportion of doctors and nurses smoke, so I wouldn't be too quick to assume what they do is actually best at all !!

Cote, but after a root canal you can go home and fall asleep. After birth you have a new baby to learn to feed and to bond with. For many of us it is the possible effects of pain relief on our ability to think clearly and function which drives the need to go without. I was told by several people g&a makes you feel drunk.... The thought of feeling drunk while in labour was terrifying to me. And as for and epidural, for me it was important to be mobile, mobile epidural was not available, so no epidural. Opiates I would never consider as they transfer to the baby and I've heard horror stories about their effects (even on this thread actually)

Theres also the fact that a root canal is just pain, birth is a different sort of pain.... For me it was a positive, constructive pain... Every contraction is one step closer to the end and for most of labour the pain comes and goes, its not constant so you get a break to regroup. I personally found it didn't affect me mentally in the same way pain of that degree normally would.

For me comparing a root canal and birth is nonsensical, they're not in any way similar experiences.

Actually summers post gives some other very practical reasons why women may choose to avoid particular types of birth. Another example is that a woman who already has a couple of toddlers at home and no one on hand to drop everything, lift , carry stuff and drive her around for the following 6 weeks, is probably going to be less likely to opt for an elective cs

I still come back to the point summer makes about childbirth not being comparable to medical procedures though. I totally accept that not all women feel like this and do compare the two. Seems some of them find it hard to accept the other point of view though

This is such a first world argument. There are women all around the world who would give anything to access the pain relief we are lucky enough to have here, and would take it in a second, if they felt that they needed it. I'm pretty sure there would be no judging, no smug comments about 'giving up your comfort for the sake of your baby' or 'martyrs' at the other end of the argument.

This is such a first world argument.

Bingo!

Actually as a bit of an aside, since having my babies, I've never bothered with injections for ordinary fillings at the dentist- I just do the breathing techniques I learned. No medals, badges of honour or martyrdom- just a simple decision which means I'm not numb afterwards, which is quite practical for me as my dentist is near my work so I usually have appointments in my lunch hour. And also thinking about it, many people have different responses to ailments- eg some will reach for painkillers at the first sign of a headache or belly ache and others won't. There isn't a right or wrong - it's called choice
I believe some people also have surgical procedures done using hypnotherapy. Not saying this is for everyone- I'm just responding to cote d'azures point which implies that all other examples of painful situations have a 'standard' answer in terms of pain relief, which clearly they don't

Cote, but after a root canal you can go home and fall asleep.

I went straight to work after mine - do I get the medal?

Where I think think pain relief in labour and pain relief in dentistry is different is that pain relief in dentistry is just more staightforward and does the job - you have a couple of injections that numb your gum so you dont feel anything where the dentist is going to work. Whereas all forms of pain relief in labour have a downside:

Gas an air - a lot of effort and not always terribly effective, though reports of feeling drunk perhaps a little exaggerated.

Pethidine or diamorphine - neither give total pain relief and can make you feel totally spaced out and do transfer to the baby - though I haven't heard any horror stories and my local hospital used to use a lot of opiates because it didn't offer epidurals until about 20 years ago (way later than any other hospital I have heard of).

Epidural - huge needle in your back and numb from the waist down. Not terribly appealing, though I would imagine the appeal becomes greater the longer labour goes on.

So I do understand why women refuse pain relief. I don't, however, understand the need to crow about it (I don't think I have ever met such a person in real life, though I have seen on TV etc) so OP, YANBU.

I've been wondering why this thread is so divisive. I think it could be that some people have forgotten the fight that had to happen to reverse the increasing medicalisation of childbirth from the 50s onwards.

Once pain relief was available it was routinely administered. Home birth from being the norm was phased out. Breastfeeding was discouraged. It took a lot of lobbying from the NCT, AIMS and the SSHC to reinstate the right of women's right to choose how they gave birth. The work of people like Michel Odent, Janet Balaskas and Sheila Kitzinger amongst others was very important in demonstrating that the "flat on your back, stirrups and medication" way to give birth was not the only, or even the best, way to labour and birth.

It's fine if you want pain relief in labour but not everyone does. We should all be able to choose how we do it.

And I do think that it's overstating it to say that women brag about not having pain relief. I can honestly say that I've never heard anyone do so.

Cecily, I just read that last sentence as "...don't understand the need to crown about it.."

I think this thread is decisive because some women feel incredibly put out that others dare to make different choices to them and feel happy about doing so.

All labours are different and it is not down to individual pain thresholds! My first labour was back to back and 40 hours of agonising contractions. Ending in a 3 hour pushing phase/episiotomy and forceps. The doctors practically forced an epidural on me after 40 hours, I was exhausted!

My second labour I barely felt a thing till I was fully dilated.
I am the same person with the same pain threshold! That is why I don't think people should boast too much about drug free labours..so many variables come in to it.

Sonia- that's a really interesting post and puts this into context. I also agree that this idea of bragging is a bit of a myth. I've never heard anyone in RL brag, just simply report what their birth was like if asked. I've also never seen a thread started by someone asking 'why on earth do people have pain relief in labour', yet the recent glut of threads which seem to stem largely from reports that the duchess of Cambridge had a natural birth, seem to suggest its ok to criticise women who forego pain relief.

On another note, thinking about the doctors and nurses thing. When I had dc1, the lovely midwife who'd delivered her used to sometimes sit on my bed and chat while I was doing a night feed (yes- they really did have the time to give proper support in the MLU) She had worked at our big regional hospital until she'd managed to get a job a couple of years previously. She described the experiences of working in each set up as quite different. In a large hospital, things tend to be more medicalised, and the doctors tend to see more births where things go wrong , and more high risk women. They also see the very rare once in a lifetime things (eg a baby being stillborn or damaged by forceps) and this sort of thing is likely to colour their view on how they give birth themselves. She told me that women in the MLU tended to labour a lot longer before requesting any pain relief (obviously epidural not available but gas and air. In her experience of working in a busy labour ward in a hospital, there was a different culture and women tended to progress to pain relief much quicker.
I think this goes some way to explaining why a higher proportion of doctors and nurses seem to opt for medicalised births. They are coming at it from a different perspective, having seen different things which are bound to affect their view.

It was my choice to have a drug free water birth for example but it was my body's choice to haemorrhage so what I wanted in my birth plan didn't enter into it.

Exactly. Some people do end up having pain relief even if they were adamant they weren't going to, because of the way things turn out. By all means choose to have no pain relief, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't have ended up having it in other circumstances. Someone who's birth takes a different route such as yours can be just as proud.

mrslyman Yeah, that too.

Perhaps we could just accept what people do and stop attacking each other for perfectly reasonable choices.