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?????

I am proud of it because I had an horrendous first birth, induced and given Meptid without my consent. I don't like feeling "spacey" or drunk. All the "pain relief" did was make my experience worse, as I was no longer able to cope with the contractions.

So with birth two and three I had drug-free home births. The source of pride is not that I judge people who do choose to use drugs, just that I didn't want to, and had to really stick to my guns to get what I wanted. I'm proud that I fought for, and got, what was important for me and my children. In a different scenario I could have exactly the same feeling of pride for having an epidural and c-section!

I have no problem with anyone feeling proud of it, but crowing about it is yawnsome.

I went into my first labour thinking I'm so hard that I wouldn't need pain relief. I ended up having every pain killer available and being told to stop screaming so much by the midwife!

I went into my second labour ready to accept every pain killer available. (Unfortunately, the labour went so quickly nothing worked and I got told to stop screaming so much by the midwife again )

It's not just luck that women give birth without any pain relief. It takes a lot of psychological effort and drive. It is an achievement.

Many women prefer to deny their own comfort for the sake of their baby.

I like the marathon analogy!

I said before hand that I didn't want an epidural as the idea of it scare me, I'm very ticklish and I don't think I'd be able to be still enough whilst they put one in tbh. I had 2 paracetamol at home and arrived at the hospital 9cms dilated, I had gas and air and delivered DS in the birthing pool.

I was proud of myself for not panicking and getting through, DH and DM were with me and DM and I both found it a very empowering experience.

I wouldn't judge anyone for whatever way they give birth, each person has different pain thresholds and sometimes things can go wrong which means medical intervention is required. As far as I'm concerned as long as the mum and baby are happy and healthy nothing else matters!

it's not just childbirth though is it? some people just bang on about crap. marathon running, diets, home baking, DIY. who cares really.

raising kids is an achievement in itself.

Well, I am proud of my 4 labours with just gas and air which lasted an hour from start to finish.

I am equally proud of my first birth that lasted 38 hours with an epidural.

I didn't like the epidural though and was happy I managed to avoid it with the others.

I once knew this woman online who claimed that women only have pain meds in labour because they don't know how to manage pain by breathing properly. She berated women for their choice of using pain relief then her husband came online spouting the same crap. Yeah, I grinned when it came out that 9 months later she had an epidural.

But it's really, really important. Your child's future health, happiness and life prospects depend on the sort of birth you have. When you're trying to get them into that great school, when they are applying for Oxbridge, when they go for their first job, how will you feel when you / they have to tick the box on the form which admits that mummy had an epidural.

(I'm personally very proud of how brave I was while they were giving me the epidural, and how very calm I managed to stay during my emergency section and when DS1 was in SCBU for a week afterwards. I'm also proud of my just lovely and completely pain free elective section, but mainly I'm just proud of the two children who I'm in the process of raising, and their births seem largely irrelevant now.)

Jesus, I'm proud of all sorts of things that would be pointless / incomprehensible to other people.

I'm proud of the exams that I've passed. Should I not be because other people failed or couldn't take any?

I'm proud of my hardworking children. Should I not be because some other people's children can't find work?

And I am bloody proud of the fact that I had one birth with minimal pain relief and 4 without any pain relief at all. Why should I not be? I keep my pride to myself - apart from here and now. I don't boast about it. I never mention it, in fact. But, yes. I was proud of it at the time of the births, and I am still.

Being proud of something isn't the same as boasting about it in order to make other people feel inferior.

God knows, there are plenty of things that I've done or not done in my life that I'm not proud of.

I'm proud because for a variety of reasons I didn't want pain relief and I did without it 3 times.

I don't announce that fact to anyone, I don't act smug about it, I don't give a shit if anyone knows.... But I am proud of the fact that I did it.

And for the record... "Oh your labour must have been less painful than mine, that's why you didn't need pain relief" is just as twattish a thing to say tbh. You have no idea how much pain another person was in, and people respond very differently to similar pain levels.

I've known grown women who cry at a papercut... I'm never very surprised when they say they had pain relief but I do when they then rant on about how much more extreme their pain must have been than women who had none.

I feel pain just as strongly as the next person, and the pain of labour was intense, like nothing I've felt before. Added to days of no sleep and complications during births it wasn't all gentle chanting, scented oils and out plops a baby. However I'm quite good at zoning out and dealing with pain. And I see nothing wrong with being proud of the fact that I didn't have to use pain relief which I was uncomfortable about. I wouldn't have been ashamed if I had needed pain relief, but I would have been disappointed.

I have run a marathon and I have had a natural birth - won't tell you which was harder and which I'm most proud of .

I did (probably) make a bit of a song & dance about my 2nd pregnancy (and it being pain-relief free) because I only got to 27 weeks in my 1st pregnancy and absolutely everything was out of my control when I went into labour. I felt guilty (still do) that I'd caused the premature labour / nightmare delivery / months in special care.

So when I got to 39+6 second time around, had a "normal" birth with no pain relief, I was immensely proud of myself.

Its a very personal thing.

I think I would be happy if I had the birth I pictured having. I'm sad about the way DS's birth went. But not because of having to have pain relief. The happiest situation for me would have been an intervention-free labour. Due to complications this didn't happen with DS and now I have been strongly advised to have a CS in subsequent pregnancies so I won't even get the chance to try again.

I think a lot of people confuse 'mentioning it' with 'boasting about it'. All you have to do now is say that you didn't have drugs while in labour and suddenly you're a boasting cow.

Someone had a thread earlier where a FB status included that she'd had a drug free birth and the OP seemed pretty sensitive to this. It's pretty possible it was simply mentioned and never intended to be a 'look what I can do!!' type message.

Being (vocally) proud of something isn't the same as putting others down for doing the opposite. Why can't people get that?

Happens with all sorts really, "well I broke my leg and I still walked on it", it seems to be this weird idea that accepting help when you are in pain is weak.

Summerain- hear hear.

The thread yesterday actually shows how far things have swung, that its almost seen as somehow wrong to have a natural birth in case it offends someone who didn't! Or it's only acceptable if we say 'well of course my labour was quite short, not too painful...'

I remember on a childbirth thread some time ago, I mentioned that during my first birth I actually got to the point where it hurt so much I felt death would be preferable. I gather from what other women say that this isn't an uncommon feeling. One MNer actually wrote that she didn't believe me, because I gave birth without epidural and therefore in her opinion, my level of pain couldn't have been that severe! Unbelievable!!

It goes back to the point that if women feel secure that they had the right birth for them, why would they need to try to compare with other people's? If you can only handle the fact that you had pain relief by convincing yourself that another woman must have had it easy, then you need to take a look at why you feel uncomfortable with your experience.

Equally, if you Judge women who opt for epidurals or c section then you need to examine why it is you feel the need to do that.

I had everything going and then ended up after a 43 hour labour having a c section anyway as ds was stuck and would never have come out naturally.

My Mum boasted about never having had pain relief with any of her dc. Her longest labour was 6 hours and no interventions required in any. It made me angry because as I said to her I am pretty sure I too could have managed a 6 hour labour without pain relief, but 43 hours? Not so much.

I get what you're saying OP, and can relate.
I didn't necessarily want any pain relief, but in the end I had about four shots of pethidine, gas and air until it stopped working, and an epidural that I was screaming to have topped up countless times...
Because there's this perception that a natural birth is superior, I still feel a little sad about my experience if I think on it for too long.

Having a naturl birth, no pain relief birth with dc3 WAS far better and I actually DID feel my body telling me what to do BUT I had to have ventouse & epidurals with first two so it isn't really a matter of choice in a lot of cases.

As I said on the Kate thread I do think you have to recognise that different women have different experiences and different degrees of pain (eg SummerRain's post) - it's not a level playing field (if people want to make it a competition !)

Where do people boast or crow about it, do we have examples? Or is it just assumed that people who've had drug free births are smug and like to show off?
I can't believe these threads keep popping up, can we just agree it's each to their own?
I've had a drug-free home birth and I've run a marathon, very few people know either fact about me, because nobody would give a flying fig. And why should they? Live and let live.

Fair enough if you're one of the few who manages a normal labour and straightforward birth of a perfectly positioned baby. For anyone induced, augmented, with a back to back baby then childbirth ceases to be 'natural' birth (vaginal maybe) and pain relief could be rather useful.

If you can do without pain relief then you're bloody lucky. My SIL banned on and on about her perfect drug free water birth over dinner once, knowing full well my first was a traumatic emcs following induction/syntocin and denied pain relief. I was in a heavily pg quandrary over vbac or emcs. She asked me what kind of birth I would like this time and it took all my willpower not to tell her to fuck off.

But you see, there we go again, 'normal' labour, 'perfectly positioned baby', etc etc.. It's almost as though its only ok to have a natural birth if it can be qualified with 'well of course I'm lucky, labour was quick, baby perfectly positioned...'

Look, childbirth hurts. Massively. (Remembers very long labour with awkwardly positioned and very big dc1...)

Can we just respect other women without having to qualify our statements. I wouldn't dream of telling a woman to 'man up and do it naturally like I did', but actually it's just as bad to suggest that women who had naturally births must have had it easy.

I've done a forceps delivery with a spinal and a straightforward delivery with gas and air. I didn't feel like a failure first time round, but I did feel a bit pissed off that despite being 8cm when I arrived at hospital the little bugger still got stuck and had to be yanked out, resulting in a delightfully large number of stitches and a three day stay in hospital.

I feel proud of my body for getting with the programme second time round and squeezing out DC2 without a fuss.

Oh and after six hours of pushing on a stuck baby, when they took the gas and air away because they said I wasn't pushing hard enough with it, I thought I might actually die from the pain. I seriously thought I might die from it.