(Trigger Warning!!!) To think labour pain is not respected by healthcare professionals?

[Goldfishshoals]

Warning: you probably don't want to read this if pregnant/about to give birth!

Three weeks ago I gave birth. I had back labour - truly agonising. The pains started on Friday, but because they were about five-six minutes apart they were arbitrarily considered 'pre-labour' rather than actual labour (despite hurting as much as 'real' labour pains). They continued like that for four days, in which time I obviously got no sleep. I called the midwife for help several times and was fobbed off with 'take paracetamol', which unsurprisingly did bugger all for the intense stabbing sensation in my back every contraction. After one call in which I cried they let me come in (30 mins car ride there and back in pain!) and have a single dose of coedine (barely took the edge off) before sending me home.

On Tuesday my waters broke so I was finally allowed in the hospital for monitoring - I pretty much immediately begged for pain relief. 'of course you can have some!' said the midwife breezily before buggering off for fifteen minutes leaving me in pain. Then she came back and said she just had to ask a few questions then 'we'd see' about getting me some pain relief... I did eventually get given some gas and air.

My contractions never became more frequent on their own and eventually I ended up being induced with epidural - which wore off just in time for me to be fully dialated. First they said they'd get me more - then they said it was too late and gave me gas and air - which they took off me again when it was time for pushing. I begged for pain relief (for anything!) and was ignored. I struggled to push but the pain was overwhelming and stopped me being able to push fully. Baby eventually delivered with forceps, and episiotomy which I could barely feel in contrast to the agony I had been in.

I had third degree tear which needed stitching, and suddenly everything changed. I had an anaesthesitist numb me fully, and keep checking my pain levels for the theatre, I had a few days in hospital with three types of pain relief thrown at me, and I was sent home with boxes of unnecessary coedine etc, for the incredibly minor soreness of the stitches.

When I compare other hospital visits (for being run over by a car as a teen, and a more recent dvt) it's a similar story. My pain was taken a lot more seriously and I was given better pain relief much more quickly, despite them not being nearly as painful as my back labour.

I realise not everyone has back labour, and some people have much less painful births (lucky cows) but surely having high levels of pain isn't that unique? So why wasn't it treated seriously? The only thing I can think of is that labour pain just isn't respected. Aibu to think this?

I was induced for DC1, contractions started pretty quickly but then died down, and then came back later in the day. The hospital decided it hadn't worked and we should pack it in and try again the next day. I said I was concerned that the contractions would keep me awake, so they gave me a cocoa - all that did was give me indigestion. Then they came to do a last trace and the midwife was most surprised at the contractions that this demonstrated and asked whether I could feel them. I resisted the urge to swear when I said yes, of course I could feel them, that was why I had been concerned about just being left to try to sleep. So suddenly it was a massive U turn, and off to the labour ward.

DH was quite pissed off, he'd been with me all day till he was sent home for the night, only to be called back to the hospital just when he was dropping off to sleep. He'd read his mags, eaten all his sandwiches, and then found he had to help move me around when I had had an epidural because the midwife was pregnant herself and there weren't many other staff around overnight. The poor love dined out on his sufferings for ages, with me gently bleating in the background that I wasn't enjoying it too much either.

I got better care and pain relief having a late miscarriage at 19 weeks in A+E (should of been on delivery ward but they didn't know there own guidelines) then I did in the delivery room with my first daughter. At one point I crossed my legs till they agreed to an epidural.

I was 17, tiny and in back to back labour. The midwife obviously didn't approve of the pregnancy.

I opted for sections the other two times and this pregnancy will (all being well) be a Caesarian.

I can't thank the two a+e doctors enough but it was something they shouldn't of had to deal with.

YANBU. I had a 48 hour labour and if one more midwife told me to take paracetamol and have a bath is have shot them.

As it turned out I was in so much pain my husband had to get me out of the bath because I was thrashing around and hit my head.

Despite all these enlightening approaches to labour I do think they belittle the pain. For me contractions were worse than crowning but I was told that's not possible!

YANBU after my c-section I was given paracetamol and ibruprofen - that's it. You may have got something else if you begged but they blackmailed you with not being able to go home if you had diamorphine.

I wasn't given any pain relief all night (I was in 2 nights) and I was scared to ask as the midwives were so mean to me- I look back and think I was so passive because I didn't know what to expect- it's a disgrace really.

The thing that I found really strange was that before giving birth, I'd been in hospital for operations and other medical experiences and I had always been cared for and shown kindness. I expected the same thing in the Labour Ward but it was the complete opposite. It felt more like I was being punished in a torture chamber. It was almost as though attitude of the staff was, we've all had to suffer, so you will too. I expected the women there to empathise but it was quite the opposite. The male staff showed more kindness.

spookypotato I agre. I'm not an HCP but I'm massively sceptical of the whole 'vaginal birth is best' dogma in this country. Could it simply be that forcing women to give birth vaginally is cheaper for the health service? We have (by far) the highest rate of stillbirth in the developed world, and an unusually high rate of maternal death (again, for a developed country). Clearly, something's not right.

As someone with no DC, reading these posts is absolutely fucking terrifying nobody should be going through this in this day and age, it's positively medieval. I'm seriously considering an ECS when my time comes to give birth.

Badum see my post below- I had ELCS and the aftercare was awful....

I found giving birth gruelling, but bearable. What I found really horrific was having to wait six hours before being stitched up afterwards, by which time I was in shock.

Someone said barbaric, that's the word
I used and my midwife was wonderful during labour.
13 years on if I allow myself to think back, the nurse who came in to stitch me and her casual 'oh I didn't apply enough anastheatic' when she was watching me cry makes me shudder. My baby was a ten pounder. Not enough anastheatic for the stitches and she told me feeding should come naturally. Oh and she announced what a mess I was below, told me to keep myself clean. 20 minutes after giving birth. Bitch

I'm very saddened to hear things haven't changed for a lot of women since the day I was denied pain relief during labour because I was a whore and how did girls like me expect to be treated whilst dealing with the evidence of our disgusting behaviour (pregnant unmarried teenager).

It just appears these days they use other excuses, personally I haven't set foot in a nhs labour ward since.

My own experience was that I got far more support having had an elcs; 4 bay room afterwards, one of the women was fairly young and incredibly traumatised from an instrumental and episiotomy. I had my c section at 12.30 in the afternoon, dh stayed til 9. She came in during the night. By the next morning she was clearly in a far worse state than me physically and mentally but I was definitely better cared for because I'd had surgery.

I was home in 48 hours.

I think elective is very different to emergency though and I think women should have the choice. It's denied I'm the basis of cost but the comparator is almost always a low intervention vaginal where, certainly at my hospital, the proportion having that sort of birth was actually small. I seem to remember it was about a third instrumental, third c section. And of course some would have had both.

Congrats on a healthy baby op but your experience is not uncommon. I had a c section and my epidural didn't take - I told them and they didn't believe me. I was in agony as they cut through me - continually telling me it wouldn't be long another 5mins - eventually the surgeon got fed up listening to me groaning and then gave in and insisted they gave me a general..fucking butchers! Then my midwife refused to acknowledge my pain the next day - she was brutal - I have never felt in so much pain and so uncared for - the lack of pain relief was just the start of it - a hideous experience.

Butchered was the word used to describe what had happened to me by two of the midwives

That was my first natural birth...which led to me having two elcs

It seems like there is an attitude that women have been doing this for thousands of years, so we should just get on with it and not bother these very busy people at the hospital with out whining. Well people have been breaking their legs for thousands of years, but no-one says to them have a warm bath and maybe consider a TENS machine (obviously not while in the warm bath!).

The worst part of my labour was at one point when the epidural wore off and the anaesthetist wasn't available to top it up (he got to me as soon as he could, but he'd been called to an emergency). By the time he got to me I was on my side begging DH to knock me out (in between sucking on the gas and air because biting the mouth piece of that seemed preferable to biting DH!) I had a pretty big grin on my face once the pain relief had kicked in again.

I was lucky. I was well looked after by my midwife and the hospital staff. The unavailable anaesthetist was a one off and just bad luck and was a very small part of a long labour. But even so I'm still getting occasional nightmares.

I'm so relieved I didn't give birth in the UK because I hate to think what state I would be in now if I hadn't been kept well topped up with pain relief and given the care and empathy that seems to be so lacking in so many stories out of the UK.

These stories are horrific.
I know in France it'a a bit different. The vast majority (over 90%) have an epidural. There is always a specific maternity aneasthiatist available.
Hospital stays of 3-4 days after as standard with own rooms and lots of drugs.
pelvic floor physiotherapy prescribed as standard for after.

I needed a c-section after a failed induction. During induction (2 days with a night in between) I had lovely midwives that did their best to make me feel comfortable. G&A didn't work for me and I refused an epidural as I could see I was going to end up in theatre anyway.

Postnatal care was a different story. I had lost blood and tore a muscle in the abdominal area so I couldn't even get up to a seated position on the bed without such an intense pain that made me cry. Even after near 2 days of drip contractions, with hours on the maximum dose, that level of pain caught me by surprise.

Still, I was expected to get up and look after the baby by myself on the second day, and I was made to feel like a nuisance (HCP asking "what NOW?") when asked for help to change a nappy as I could barely stand up. I ended up caring for my baby on my own while crying with pain and feeling lonely and vulnerable. I still get so angry when I revive it...

Women need to start getting very, very uncooperative with hospital staff in situations like this.

I.e. - you're not inducing me unless you've got my epidural sorted first.

I won't consent to be examined without pain relief.

Call an anaesthetist and I want to witness you writing in my notes that I've requested an epidural and what your response is.

Personally however for me going through long and excruciatingly painful labours without an epidural was empowering. For me was like climbing K2, trekking the Kalahari or swimming the channel: fucking unbearable and endless at times, but I felt like a goddess when I'd done. I look back on it and I feel proud - especially as I didn't have short or easy labours. I think it gave my babies and me a good start together - but only because it was my choice.

Ihave to admit that was pretty much the approach I took after the first consultant declined my request for a section with the line "we don't do them for maternal request "... Started pushing for statistics and detail on likely outcomes for me, then tore their stats apart when they claimed that despite being immobile and unable to open my legs, my chance of intervention was no higher than normal. I got very bloody difficult.

We shouldn't have to fight for the care we need

"Could it simply be that forcing women to give birth vaginally is cheaper for the health service? We have (by far) the highest rate of stillbirth in the developed world, and an unusually high rate of maternal death (again, for a developed country). Clearly, something's not right."

No - it's because you're less likely to die or lose your uterus/end up in HDU if you have a vaginal birth than surgery.

The problem is the very, very low rate of uncomplicated vaginal births in some hospitals.

I urge all women to choose their hospital like they choose their child's school - look at the fucking data!

Some hospitals have normal birth rates which are literally DOUBLE the rate of other similar hospitals. Some have double the induction rates, double the emergency c/s rate, double the forceps rate.

Google RCOG Maternity Indicators.

And if you want to avoid your labour going shitshaped it's worth remembering that low risk women who choose the labour ward as their birth setting have a much higher rate of complicated birth than similar women who use birth centres.

Many of us have little or no choice of hospital. My city has one maternity unit. Next nearest is in a town which can easily take over an hour to get to - and probably a fifty quid taxi ride if you don't drive. I did go to it once I realised I'd need a section because I knew they were better for aftercare but I don't think I'd have fancied the risk in labor.

Yes, it's a bit shit outside of major cities. :-(

Its a while since I looked at the numbers but if I remember rightly elective section is actually prettylow risk, I seem to recall it being slightly better for babies and slightly worse for mums. Many c section stats are useless because they lump elective and emergency, and generally all levels of emergency, together in one big pot.

DS is 11.5 months now but ive had to block out the memory of his birth because I cry and shake at the memory of it, and mine wasn't anywhere near as bad as some of these.

One of the big things for me was how little anyone cared about my SPD. I was in so much pain, all the time, basically immobile, but no one gave a shit. My hips are still fucked now.

My midwives were lovely in the hospital, but I also wasn't believed. I had a oessary induction at lunchtime and nothing really happened until I got a few pains at 11pm and then all of a sudden I was in agony. Gas and air wasn't working but again no one seemed to care... diamorphine was ace but lasted an hour. I had three epidurals and none of them worked. I went from 0-4cm over a period of maybe six or so hours but then went from 4-fully dilated in about 40 minutes. I was in absolute agony but the midwives didn't believe me because when they examined menpreviously I was 4cm dilated so couldn't be in that much pain

When I said I needed to push they again didn't believe me, and DS was born 20 minutes later!

My biggest issue is that I felt lied to. No one told me having the pessary would make internal examinations excruciating, and I was made to feel like a child for not tolerating them. I wasn't encouraged to move about even though it probably would have helped the pain. No one suggested they top up the diamorphine even when the third epidural didn't work and I was in agony. While I was going through utter hell, the midwives stood around and chatted to my mum and dp and made me feel like I was all alone and no one was going to help.

That emotional trauma has been longer lasting than the momeory of the pain! I genuinely thought I was going to die. It felt like torture and I thought it was going to go on for days and no one cared.

I also think there's a lot to be said for honest accounts of labour and birth. Where I live, natural births and hypnobirthing and yoga birth etc are very popular and one antenatal class leader I had refused to acknowledge that it hurt. She called contractions 'sensations' and that to me is damaging. Yes there are women that have less painful labours, but there are also women that do not.

I went in with the notion that I am a very quiet introvert who could tolerate pain and didn't want to make a scene and could be braver and stoical. In fact, what happened was, I begged for my mother and for help and for someone to make it stop. It shattered my believe that I knew myself and I was ashamed of myself, and still apologise to dp for my behaviour now, which isn't fair.

When friends asked how it was, I was honest and will be honest whenever someone asks. It was horrific. It was the worst pain and the most hideous thing I've ever experienced.

I had a similar experience to OP and to some other posters. Very long 'pre-labour'- over a week of contractions. They started out far apart and not too painful, but enough to disturb my sleep so I was beyond exhausted before it all kicked off.

Later, after 36 hours of 3-minute-apart contractions (very painful now, although it was to get worse) I still hadn't dilated beyond 1cm, so they kept sending me home from hospital, telling me to come back when the contractions felt stronger. Even apart from the pain, when I said I'd slept for 40 minutes total in 5 days, no one batted an eyelid.

I was sooo relieved when my waters finally broke. They then admitted me, but I was still 1cm so they just left me in a room for 6 hours (screaming, kneeling on the floor with useless G&A), until I got to 4cm, then they took about 2-3 more hours of unfathomable faffing and delays before I finally got to the labour ward and had an epidural.

The epi didn't really work and then fell out. I pushed really hard for 1.5 hours, which in hindsight only served to wreck my pelvic floor. I could tell at the time that I wasn't pushing 'against' anything, but the midwife kept telling me to keep going and maybe it would move baby down. I was made to stay on my back with my legs up on stirrups throughout this bit, despite absolutely begging and trying to sit up (various drip things/monitors got in the way and DH couldn't move them safely but I think if the midwife had helped it wouldn't have been that hard).

Eventually had a spinal (bliss) and forceps and 3rd degree tear.

Sorry that turned into a saga(!), but to your point about pain relief, I totally agree. I felt that the midwives and doctors were totally conditioned to seeing and hearing people in agony. Also suspected that one or two saw it as a challenge to withhold an epidural for as long as possible. Maybe that is unfair but that's how it felt at the time.

For full disclosure though, I was offered pethidene a little earlier than the epidural and I declined it at the last minute (I had researched and made the decision before labour definitely not to take it). Maybe then they thought my pain couldn't be so bad :(

I find it really hard to reconcile the whole thing in my mind, as birth should be a natural process and I don't understand why it was so tortuous for me and others.