Can I ask a question about pain in childbirth?

[ReneeVivien]

I feel a bit daft asking this, but in the six years since I gave birth it has been preying on my mind and feels kind of important to know. Briefly, I started strong but irregular contractions at 1am, went into hospital that evening and laboured till 1am, then onto gas and air till 5am. At that point it was established I was having a back labour and failing to progress (still only 4cm dilated, cervix swelling rapidly), given epidural with the plan to augment labour. Almost immediately baby went into distress (cord round neck) and was then delivered by EMCS.

My question is this: how much would the pain of labour have changed after this? Specifically, the level and quality of pain? I'm not daft, I know it would have got worse, that I would have experienced transition and crowning and that it would have hurt more. But how much more? Does labouring with an OP position, getting stuck at 4cm, give you a good sense of what vaginal birth might be like? Or really not? Or is it really variable?

Why is it even important for me to ask this? I don't know. I do know that I found the whole experience very shocking and difficult to recover from. Time has sorted most of that out, but I still have this niggling need to understand.

Tricky to answer as we all have different experiences of labour and pain thresholds. For me getting to 5cm in a few hours was the most intense, I wasnt given any g&a til then mind! After which my waters went and in a matter of mins I was 9cm!!! It was all so sudden! I then had to wait three hours as my cervix became inflamed and need it to go down before pushing, was agonising trying not to push! Was given morphine by then so didn't feel crowning either. For me by the time I was pushing I worked with the contractions and didn't feel as intense before established labour. Due dc2 in nine weeks so couldn't have been that bad

I had a back labour. The most pain was at 2-3cm and it was the worse experience of my life. It never got any worse, in fact it got less painful as I progressed for some reason. I had a second child and there was absolutely no point at which the pain level ever matched that of the 2-3cm of my first.

It didn't get any worse for me. More of the same really. Tbh I barely felt the crowning. I felt it was insignificant compared to the contractions.

I found each and every contraction just as painful as the previous one I had so after a number of hours like this I had an epidural. Unfortunately this wore off and wasnt topped up when it came time to push and the contractions I felt then after a couple of hours of not very painful ones at all it was excrutiating. Along with the syntoxin drip I had to regulate contractions (which became irregular once at 10cm) and then the forceps, episiotomy, 4th degree tear I cant say I felt the crowning as such just pain like i was being ripped apart until my DS finally arrived.

So to answer your question I would say that you probably wouldnt have found it any more painful than what you had already been through with just G&A. If you had had an epidural or something stronger and then it wear off then I think you would have found it more painful rather than your body building up a tollerance to the pain as such IYSWIM.

Thank you all. It does actually really help to hear your experiences, in particular to think that the experience may have been more of the known rather than something unknown and traumatic.

i realise I'm making no sense at all. But - thank you.

My experience was that crowning is truly excruciating if you're not on pain relief. (I had been on gas and air but had it taken off me for second stage as I was getting a bit woozy on it). The pain is very different. First stage contractions can hurt like hell, but they are inside you, centred on your belly or back. The baby coming out is altogether different ime, a burning and tearing pain. It doesn't last long but was without a doubt the most intense part.

For me the transition time was the most painful after that although it hurt it was good pain because I was excited about pushing. It felt good to push!

Didn't have pain relief.

My first labour was back-to-back. The contractions were agonising from the get-go, and within an hour were only a few minutes apart. I was vomiting from the pain. Needless to say, when I got to the hospital I was only 1cm dilated, and after 16 hours, of agony, and still not fully dilated, I also had an EMCS.

My second labour was a normal vaginal delivery. Although it was very painful, especially as the baby delivered, it was NOTHING like the back breaking pain of contractions when the baby is back-to-back.

I think it is normal to go over and over a traumatic birth experience. My first labour was 18 years ago now, and I can still remember the pain vividly.

It's hard to know. This was the point I got to with DD1 before augmentation, epidural and forceps. She was OP and I'd been having strong irregular contractions for at least 24 hours before the epidural.

DD2 was a home birth with no pain relief. She was likely also OP - her position wasn't checked for various reasons, but the back pain was the same.

I got in the pool (no idea how dilated as no internals) and DD2 was born very quickly afterwards. I felt literally no pain on crowning or pushing and am not sure whether I experienced transition. Once in the water I was very calm and quiet and it really didn't hurt.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, the pain might not have got worse. It's perfectly possible that, like me, for you the hardest bit is the initial and latent stages (where, frustratingly, you get little sympathy, and are often told you are not in labour and are making a bit of a fuss about nothing). It may be that you had done the worst bit, and sadly missed out on the good bit (as I did with DD1). Everyone really is different.

Op- just to add that I wouldn't try to make any decisions about possible future births on the basis of what your first might - or might not- have been like. Second births are generally easier anyway. My second labour was almost as long as my first and hurt like hell but i don't think anything compares to first time round, the first time your body has pushed a baby out

The worst bit for me was early labour until 7/8cm. I just got into the rhythm of it after that and knew it was nearly over so the pain decreased. The pushing (ended up being put on the drip to facilitate that part as I'd been at 8cm for 5 hrs with the babies head twisted and my cervix was not fully dilated) just felt amazing and was so productive feeling after 2 days of constant never ending non productive contractions, even with the full on strong contractions from the drip. I enjoyed pushing, and crowning was fine, just a bit stinging. My labour was 52 hrs and I had G&A. I think you experienced the 'worst' of labour I really do (at least from my experience).