Labour pain is like...

[MadAboutQuavers]

A plea for unbridled honesty from all you MN mums...

I'm due to give birth to first DC in 6 weeks' time. Like a lot of mums-to-be, the prospect of enduring labour pain very soon is scaring the blardy hell out of me, and like all first-time mums-to-be, the fear of the "unknown" is doubling it.

Obviously, I know that labour is not going to be "ooh, now that's a bit uncomfy" in terms of how painful it is . I am, if all goes to plan (ahem!), hoping to have several remedies to help me cope with the pain (TENS, epidural, etc.), but I wondered if any mums can put into words what the pain ACTUALLY feels like?

I know everyone has their own different experience, but is there anything you could say that could describe the pain to someone who has no clue?

Not that I'm expecting this to prepare me or anything....

In the big scheme of things it's just a couple of days at most. The really unbearable bit is probably a few hours at most. Millions of women much less prepared than yourself and much less strong than yourself have achieved it.
Whatever your labour brings, it'll be one hell of an experience! So try to enjoy it when you can!

Well I sort of enjoyed it. Deep groaning pain but full of power too. Had an epidural for a while with DD1 but then had nothing at all, not even an asprin, with the next two. It WAS deep primal pain but I was relaxed an didn't fight it. I think if you anticipate the next contraction you are already tensing up and that exaggerates the pain even more. Use the gaps between contractions to have a moment's recovery and let the pain subside. Towards the end it might not feel there are many gaps but then you're nearly there and meeting your baby.

It helped me to think it couldn't be that comfy being squashed in the birth canal and that we were a little team in discomfort together - there will be two of you going through it and as soon as you meet your team-mate the pai will stop. A most wonderful sensation.

I'm sure its different from person to person and from one labour to the next.

The few contractions I felt were fine, just like a period pain but because of a joint problem I had, my pelvis and spine were under strain and that caused indescribable nerve pain. That's not a usual experience by any stretch of the imagination but unexpected things do happen and we all do the best we can.

I had an epidural asap and after that it was amazing - very peaceful and all over in 2hrs. The instant it was over, I would have done it again

MAQ - Seriously, don't rule out G&A. First time around for me it made me feel hideously sick and I thought it was useless. Second time around (much quicker labour and not enough time for epidural) it was nothing short of FANTASTIC. I shit you not, it was ace. I still cannot believe how much it helped, so who knows?
Give it a go and make sure the midwife shows you how to use it properly. IIRC, I was told to suck in deep breaths and sort of clench my teeth around the mouthpiece on the out breath (making a "heeeee" ing noise), almost like a smile...having written that down I am now considering whether the MW was having a laugh at my expense , it did work though!

All the things I was very sceptical about in my first labour - breathing methods, visualisation ("Visualisation ?FFS!!" I remember thinking)keeping active etc all made a huge difference second time around.

FWIW my ideal position for labour was kneeling on a hospital chair, face pressed against the backrest while rotating my hips during contractions.....and exposing bare bum to all and sundry! Not quite what I was planning Dignity ? It went out of the window.

ooooh this will get loads of replies! Painful beyond description, thinking I was dying and trying to get off the bed to escape from the pain and then the absolute relief when the baby came out. And then I had to do it again as I had twins. Good luck!

Contractions initially felt like period pain and were perfectly manageable, but gradually increased in intensity until it felt like my insides were being squeezed in a vice, with awful lower backache.

I think the key is to take each contraction as it comes and not think about what's coming (eventually I found I was totally focused on the moment and ignoring everything else).

I found counting through the contractions helped me to regulate my breathing and distract me a bit, gas and air was great for regulating my breathing as well (though I know you said it makes you sick). I have a pretty low pain threshold and before I was allowed gas and air I was convinced I would need an epidural, but in the end the G & A was enough.

I also found labouring in water helpful and had DH rub my back hard at the start of each contraction (I think some women hate to be touched in labour though, so this might not be for you).

As others have said, pushing was like trying to do a very big poo (n fact I was convinced that I needed to do a poo until the MW did a quick check!); crowning was a burning, tearing feeling but I think because I knew that the birth was then imminent that pain was nowhere near as bad as I'd expected (had 2nd degree tear).

What I really wasn't prepared for was how uncomfortable I would be after the initial high had worn off and for the first ten days or so - the stitches, piles and physical exhaustion combined with chronic sleep deprivation were pretty grim!

Good luck, it will be worth it!

i was extremely lucky because i had a great labour , i talked all my fears through with midwives and i decided very early on to have an epidural , a surprising amount of people seemed against having an epidural but i am crap with pain and i wanted to be as relaxed as possible, i got started on the gas and air at four centimetres dilated ,an hour before i had been offered paracetamol during a contraction and it was all i could do not to laugh atthe midwife,
the gas and air was great i felt the pain but i was too high to care and the epidural was heaven , it didnt hurt as bad as i thought, there are some downside to the epi though, my ds had to have a clip put on his head which didnt hurt(prob because of the epi)but was uncomfortable(they alllowd me to have gas and air during said procdures)and i didnt know when to push i think the main thing was though that i was calm and relaxed the whole time , i think reading and preparing yourself helps and trusting the midwives ,
good luck with it, the feeling of your baby coming into the world after all that pushing is an undescribable feeling .
ps to me the labour pains felt like very bad wind breathing right really does help as does walking around during contractions , i personally culdnt stand lying down during them

well it's kind of like pushing a baby out of your vagina

getting to 10cm was horrendous, I thought my whole body would physically rip apart and that I was going to die (but I had no pain relief and was induced so it was very fast)

the pushing stage was a piece of cake by comparison, the contractions were manageable, there are breaks in between to have a drink / swear at DH etc, it was like pushing out the most monstrous poo of all time, but it was a more productive pain than the 'getting-to-10cm' pain which just seemed pointlessly agonising and evil.

I have to say for me it was sheer, PAIN PAIN PAIN! No other way to describe it. Sheer exhaustion after many hours in slow labour with a jammed up cervix at 3cms.....

Contractions with a drip and no epidural a hospital fuckup i wouldnt do!! The pressure to push out was fine, but then i had an epi. The relief once out, is astonishing! Then its all gone once baby out!!!! cant remember it at al;

Having said all that.... i am desparate to do it again.... having just MC and hoping 2011 will fullfill my masochistic dream :)

I had 2 different experiences with my births.

The first with my daughter, I think I panicked, had gas & air, which made me feel sick, had pethidine, that made me feel like going clubbing (apart from the labour part) and the the epidural made all the pain go away. It was painful but from my experience of my secondl abour no way near as bad.
My second was gas & air all the way until the mid wife told me to push too soon, which created a ridge in my cervix which meant when my body told me to push my son couldn't past the ridge. They gave me an epidural (7 actually, its hard to give a moving full contracting woman an epidural!) and 13 minutes with a numb right foot, I had given birth. I felt everything with the birth of my son, even unfortunatky the tearing and it was the most eye watering pain of my life. but once he had popped out, it all went away and unlike with my duaghter I felt so proud and wanted to hold him straight away. I think being completely off my face the first time round didn't help that. I tore both times, 3rd first time and 2nd second time round. Yes it is like having your hoo haa ripped, but a few stitches and your away. I would give birth over pregnancy time and time again and even though now I know it really hurt, I couldn't explain it in more detail that I have.

Good luck, you will be fine and as the mid wife said to me, its not that much pain in the grand scheme of things. My 2yr old screaming her head off tantrumming is actually worse!!xx

It fucking well hurts

I don't really remember the pain of the contractions as such, but remember my body knowing one was coming. Does that make sense? The crowning is the bit that smites. That I don't think I'll ever forget. It feels like your fanjo is on fire.

But its worth every second of it afterwards. Honest!

First time round I had a failed induction. DS was comfy! 6 hours after the start of induction - nada. DH went home. 5 hours later I was on the phone saying 'COME BACK I'VE JUST FLOODED THE BED!' I'd had Pethedine at 1am and DS was born at before 4 am. I know it hurt because DH and the student doctor who was stupid enough to stand near my hand had crescent shaped bleeding marks on their hands. I was so 'drunk' on the pethedine that I don't even remember DS crying. I was floating somewhere on the ceiling. I then had to joy of dealing with a pethedine baby because the drug had crossed the placenta and he was high as a kite for another 2 days. I would just point out that I didn't tear though so maybe all the perineal massage did some good.

Second time round I woke up from a nap and as I sat up there was a distinct popping sensation which was my waters breaking. I remember thinking 'oh, that's not good'. The first very gentle contraction didn't arrive for another 20 minutes but then they were every 5 minutes like clockwork. I'm lucky though, neither of my births were longer than 4.5 hours from start to finish.

By the time I got to hospital they were uncomfortable but bearable. I used a TENS machine thoughtout stage 1 and didn't need any other pain relief until stage 2.

From then on, it was just over an hour of intense pain. For me it was literally agony but I was on Gas and Air and it was too late for an epidural. I had to be monitored because of meconium in the waters which meant I couldn't move around much but in the end, that really didn't bother me.

3 years on I can stil remember the pain of crowning. It was horrendous. It felt like I was being split apart going upwards not downwards. Once the head was out, the rest was, by comparison, a piece of cake.

The splitting apart sensation turned out be nothing alarming, I didn't tear at all.

What nobody warned me about was the nausea you can get after the birth. When you are given whatever the drug is to make you deliver the afterbirth, I can make you as nauseous as having morning sickness. I threw up tea and toast the first time and literally threw up on my DD the second time. Poor kid was barely 10 minutes old and had to be bathed to get it all off her.

I had a great labour second time round. The first time I was scared and tense and panicky and miserable and like a self fulfilling prophesy, expecting the worst made the labour slow down to a halt and then it was all about the interventions and drugs. The pain was agonising for hours - I sat on a hospital bed and put up with it. I basically did all the wrong things.
But!
Second time round, I did all the right things.
So.
The right things (IMO):

1. Stay standing up (or sitting leaning forward)in the early stages, walk about, do sideways climbing up the stairs, wiggle your hips and swing your pants to some music. Literally, wiggle that baby into the right position. Have a rest by kneeling in front of the sofa and resting your head on your arms in front of you - doing the all fours position is also good for positioning.
2. Do NOT hyperventilate or do fast, shallow 'I'm terrified' panic breathing. This can apparently lead to decelerations of the baby's heart rate and this can lead to an emergency C. Slow controlled breaths, even big gaspy breaths work.
3. When a contraction hits, go floppy - your whole body should relax. Don't let your body tense up. Even if your mind is screaming at you and and you're scared, force yourself to make your whole body go completely floppy. The logic is supposed to be something like this: your cervix is like a sphincter and if you tense up it doesn't open. (You'd find it hard to go for a poo if your body was all tensed up, right? Same thing. Ish.)
4. Make you mouth and face go floppy too - it's really easy to grimace and scrunch up your face during a contraction but you must control it! I read this somewhere and they called it 'horse lips'. You do deep breathing through a relaxed mouth and kind of let your lips relax when you exhale making an attractive horsey noise. 5)Forget about giving birth and concentrate on the above. I couldn't do visualisations or anything but kept trying to physically relax my face, then shoulders, then tummy, then pelvic floor over and over during each contraction.

I found it least painful on all fours over a big ball. Unbearable pain can mean you're not in a good position. Gen up on your positions so you can change for the next contraction. The pain is painful but nothing you can't cope with. Keep thinking this too and that your are not being hurt inside, this is normal and your are ok. I think labour pain is easier to cope with than regular pain because normally pain does mean that you are being damaged in some way or that something is wrong with your body. It's also short (but repetitive) - the really painful bit of each contraction only lasting a few seconds. The pain IS indescribable, but definitely not a sharp pain like to chopping your finger off or having some horrid injury. More like period pain or cramps but different too. You're asking the wrong question though - you don't need to know what it's like, just that it's manageable and it IS manageable.

So. Be afraid, be very afraid (it IS scary the first time round) but don't let your fear make you lose control of your body (or your labour): forget about childbirth and concentrate on being floppy and breathing deeply during each contraction - take them one at a time. I know it sounds a bit floaty and earth mothery but you were designed to do this. I was really shocked by how my body just did its thing - I never had to try to push, or make an effort, my body just took over. Take comfort in the fact that I would much rather do childbirth again than pregnancy (I don't think you get a choice though).

Do all this and I guarantee you a good labour or your money back!

Good grief some of the descriptions on here sound horrific!
I must have been very lucky but i found it totally bearable. I used a tens machine, then water and gas and air for pain relief, and I can honestly say that I had no burning sensation at all for the pushing stage. In fact it felt numb other than feeling the urge to push.
I would say contractions feel like someone very heavy is sitting on your pelvis but the peak of each contraction is short and you get lovely rests inbetween.
I found the trick was not to panic and to breathe very slowly and deeply during contractions.
Good luck!

I thought it felt like having a brace that was put on too tightly to your teeth but with a(n increasingly shorter) period of rest between tightenings. And then suddenly it stops. Bliss.

"Do all this and I guarantee you a good labour or your money back"

camden, I agree with everything you have said about trying to optimize your chances of a good labour. But I have to very gently point out, that in the end it might be luck that decides how things go. I did all the walking, breathing, hypnobirthing, changing positions, in water, floppy body stuff. I did it for 2 days. I pushed for 6hrs in every conceivable position. I could not give birth. It wasn't until a blue light transfer that I found out why. But in the 3 years since then I've asked over and over again 'what did I do wrong, what didn't I do to get dd out, what should I have tried etc. It's only very recently with a lot of counselling that I've come to accept that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to labour and while you maximise your chances of having an intervention-free delivery, if you do end up having to go down that route, you did nothing wrong.

My body did not to do its own thing, my body did not know how to give birth to a malpositioned baby. I had no urge to push, my body did not push, dd did not descend. After a diet of Ina May and hypnobirthing, I was very shocked and just didn't know what to do. My contractions were 2.5 minutes long from the beginning (2 day labour) and had no peak. They hurt abominably throughout. For the last 10hrs, the break inbetween was 20-30 seconds and the pain did not stop (dd was crushing a nerve). I know looking back that my insistence that I wanted no drugs and no intervention meant that I was out of control. I was in pain that I could not manage. After a pregnancy where I'd told myself I'd listen to my body, what actually happened was I ignored my body as is spasmed and contracted and I thought I was dying. It felt so wrong and of course as a first timer I was just pacified and reassured.

Sometimes you can't control how things go and sometimes the things you've relied on like a peak to contractions or a break inbetween or doing things the 'right' way ensuring that your body takes over, just don't happen. And that hurts. Mentally, physically.

Of course what happened to me isn't the norm. But I do warn that the gap between expectation and reality is where I fell down. I didn't have a rush of love for dd, or an almighty high. I had a lot of guilt and a terrible low. My fault though.

Yes, it hurts but one thing to think about is that it is not a continuous wall of pain as there is no pain in between contractions. So you can re-group with breathing, focusing yourself and moving about. One thing that helped me was being told that this is pain with a purpose- every contraction is one step closer to holding your beautiful baby (or babies!). I had 2 fairly quick labours, spent mainly at home, with only a bit of gas an air for number one. You'll be fine

Well, can I just say it was absolutely no where near as bad as I thought it would be.

My pains-both times-were around my bum & made me want to stand on tiptoe iyswim

It was an odd out of control feeling though.

But then as soon as it was over, it was over.

(Until the afterpains when bfeeding)

Pain is such a personal experience-- for myself I'd elect labour any day having gone through an appendectomy which was dreadful, labour was just about ok, give or take five births, each of them different.
However I have always felt that women should be told about labour being the unique kind of pain it is for most of us-- perhaps things have changed since I had the children, but somehow seeing my daughters go through labour, I dont think so. In fact I was not impressed with how they were treated in an overcrowded ward. Not good.
In fact I know if I had been allowed to give birth at home, how different it would have been--. Labour for most of us is painful, no escaping this truth. Bit I have often said the pain of appendicitus is far more severe- a different kind of pain.

Pain is not as bad as a kidney stone,
or as bad as gall stones,
but it does feel like your lower back is cracking open.

Get the epidural and enjoy meeting your little babe! Am excited for you

Good luck.

Like pulling your bottom lip over your head! (I think this is in a Family guy episode actually!)

It hurted so that I moaned a bit, but not that much, besides each contraction I waited for it to stop to have a nap (had slept just 2 hours the night the labour started).

Was prepared to the labour by a friend of mine - she told that

1. everything'll be OK
2. she slept between the contractions.

So when the time came, I asked myself, whether I'm worse then her? The answer was No. (I'm sure you're better than both of us ) So I tried and relaxed. And actually slept The trick with me was to relax my back after a contraction is over.

First stage: really intense tightening type pain in lower belly...nothing like BH. Made me double over and grit teeth from the first one. Every 3-4 mins, 3cms dilated by 6hrs. Sleep between contractions?! Yeah right!

Then into pool, pain more in back by now. Worst lower back pain ever. 8cms by 14 hrs.

At 16 hrs midwife sent me to surgical unit by ambulance as 'not progressing.'

Never got to pushing stage as DD in funny position and getting distressed so given epidural and emergency forceps just missing CS. Pethidin and anaethetists are my new favourite things!

Just before second, CS level epidural kicked I briefly felt the urge to push, and it was overwhelming and involuntary...amazing.

DD born 26 hrs after 1st contraction and is currently messing around/feeding off my left nork hence shoddy 1 handed typing and short sentences!

Afterwards I was pretty shocked and said I'd on;y have another if CS or epi (only 1/2 joking!)but she is 6 wks now and I'm happily saying 'the next one' and would try natural birth again, despite sore episiotomy stitch site! I think the lack of control was scariest to me.

Good luck and enjoy your baby!

Oh, and what Show of Hands said, I too read Ina May and was convinced my body knew what it was doing and all would be fine. I still get guilt pangs about it, but it wasn't my fault!

I found the end contractions fine as all pain was subsumed by efforts to rein in (or give purchase to) the massive urge I felt to push (a bit like when, in the words of Fat B*stard from Austin Powers, you have a wee turtlehead poking out... or threatening to at least, and you must find a toilet).

The beginning ones hurt a lot though. Less painful than breaking my wrist bone (although that was in two and very bad; I went into shock and I didn't do that in labour), but painful enough for writhing/bouncing around on the birthing ball/ doubling up and mouthing Owww... a lot. Low back massage really helped. I had vomit issues in labour and felt cold; I couldn't hold anything down and was very dehydrated. I've heard being the opposite helps with the pain, so drink lots. Pethadine at 5cms really helped me get through and no effects on babe (Apgar of 9 at birth).

It's great though! You get a lovely baby and the memory quickly fades. Don't be afraid to take pain relief if you are struggling; it's no crime.

Best wishes!