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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

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Original poster

Are you honest when asked by a new Mum to be if labour is painful ?

111 replies

scarymamma · 13/03/2006 21:01

My s-i-l is pregnant with her first and my bf is considering it. They keep asking me how painful labour is and I'm unsure how honest I should be. They are both very concerned about the pain factor! If I tell them the honest truth (yes, it hurts like @!#*), will that just worry them?
I remember feeling annoyed because my other s-in-l and friends were economical with the truth when I was pregnant with my first.

What would you do and what did your friends/family tell you?

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expatinscotland · 14/03/2006 10:17

I am. I don't see the point in lying. I do add that this was just my own experience and theirs may be different.

staceym11 · 14/03/2006 10:26

now i always described it as really really painful, and also added that you think that you know what really really painful is, well you dont! i didnt! now i do, why the hell am i doing it again?????

Gemmitygem · 14/03/2006 10:28

Well, I'm hoping that the terror will subside over the 9 months.

I think part of it is that we have such cosseted lives, that many people have never had severe pain (I have never been in pain in my life, not really), and so childbirth is like a one-off event. In the old days people suffered more, and maybe accepted pain more..

Also I think it's a lot to do with how your mum has talked to you about childbirth. my mum only had 1 child, with epidural, and said it was great but she definitely wouldn't have wanted to do it without. So I kind of have the same idea that my birth will be like that.. My friend whose mum had 4 with no pain relief and always said it wasn't that bad is much more confident than me !(she's not preg yet, though!)

I agree that the fear of pain is definitely worse than the pain itself, I'm just worried about getting trauma or flashbacks, taking ages to get over it mentally (I'm a very highly strung, hysterical sort of person). On the other hand, you just can't tell; I might be able to cope with it quite well and have hidden reserves of strength!

I suppose on the one hand it's a natural process, but then so is dying and the progression of many agonisingly painful diseases, so I'm not convinced by its naturalness being a reason not to have pain relief..
Sorry about the rant! That's what you get with panicky 1st timers! V useful reading all your comments though, thanks..

Boopert · 14/03/2006 10:29

My friend asked me this when she was pg. i didn't lie, told her for me it wasn't that painful. Natural birth etc. When it was her turn she said it was the most pain she had ever ever felt. So now i just say yes it hurts but once baby is in there, gotta come out somehow.....

DumbledoresGirl · 14/03/2006 10:35

Gem, we are all different so I can't predict your reaction, but as I said, I have a low pain threshold and dreaded each of my births for each of the nine months I was pregnant. Ds1 was a very difficult birth, but made harder by the fact that I gave birth in a hospital which did not have an on call anaesthetist 24 hours a day so elective epidurals weren't an option. Everyone else I have ever spoken to since who had a labour like mine also had an epidural but I had to manage without. So in that sense, I had a harder time than modern western women should expect to have.

BUT, trauma afterwards? No, it didn't happen. I did have a bit of a cry a couple of days later telling my sister how awful the birth had been, but I suspect that was the baby blues kicking in. I was pregnant again with ds2 within 9 months. The wonderful unique thing about the pain of childbirth is that it gives you a baby to love at the end. And the love you feel for your baby surpasses all other love.

queenrollo · 14/03/2006 10:40

i am honest, i had a 'good' labour and feel its important that people know not all labours are awful. one of the things that kept me going was the thought that if my grandma could do it 13 times, i could manage it once at least!!

in my ante-natal class people seemed split into two very different categories.....those who wanted to hear every birth story possible, and those who didn't want to hear any at all.

Gemmitygem · 14/03/2006 10:42

thanks dumbledoresgirl..

My cousin had a similar experience to you (no epi available), and a bad birth, shoulder dystocia etc, and she was really traumatised and even had an elective c/s next time because of it.

But I'm sure it will be all right on the night, I've always been quite a 'jammy' person in life so far (touch wood, touch wood)!and also, after all, as others said, it has to come out, and you love it so much you don't care..
(will still have the epidural if it's bad though

queenrollo · 14/03/2006 10:44

Gem - i have been known to have anxiety attacks and one of my biggest fears was that it would hapen when my labour started. what actually happened was i became the most serene and entranced person. afterwards both myself and dp were surprised at how calm we were through the whole thing especially as it happened 4 weeks early.

blueshoes · 14/03/2006 10:50

I agree with other posters about birth pains being "good" pains and thus psychologically easier to bear. But I was induced and on the syntocinon drip which was being cranked up every hour. I will never know whether those unnaturally intense contractions were normal or not. They hurt.

Blu · 14/03/2006 11:00

Well my labour wasn't particularly painful. Just very long. And at the end when they did ventouse 9after 3.5 hours of pushing) I simply demended an epudural, because lying on my back was the only thing that made me painful and panicky.

My endorphins were in full flood, and I did feel confident that, one way or another, I could do it. And I distanced myself from the lurid stories that everyone is determined to tell, and thought 'well, however bad it was, they did get though it, and if I don't like it i'll have an epidural'.

I know they don't always work, and that people do have very painful labours.

But you hear less about the ones where pain wasn't particularly an issue.

kama · 14/03/2006 11:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

fennel · 14/03/2006 11:03

I never forget the pain. hated it every moment of every (3) births. and can't think of it as a good positive pain at all. not even the low intervention home birth. why not tell people how you really found it so they can realise it might not be a breeze.

newborn babies are nice though.

bakedpotato · 14/03/2006 11:08

Haven't read all the thread.
I was aware, during my two labours (both of which were drugfree, despite my best efforts ), that yes it was bad but it wasn't actually as bad as I'd imagined it might be. I kept thinking: well, it's bound to get worse. It didn't.
The advantages of an overactive imagination?

Seren00 · 14/03/2006 12:30

My ante-natal midwife said something to me when I was close to my EDD that I think makes sense, "It'll probably feel like the worst day of your life but just remember that for most people it IS only one day and after it's all finished the chances are you'll feel like it's the best!"

I said, "Oh GREAT, thanks", but in retrospect she was right! For me, anyway.
x

rachp · 15/03/2006 09:42

I am completely honest with people - it didn't hurt, it was incredibly powerful but not pain. And I am a complete wuss about pain (cry at the dentists!!)
If you are afraid, your sensation of pain increases enormously. If you feel safe, in control, supported, and are encouraged to move around freely, you tend to feel less fear and less pain. Gas & air and TENS were very helpful to me - and less risky than an epidural, which vastly increases the chances you'll end up with ventouse, forceps or an emergency caesarean.

This was my first labour and birth, to a baby over 10 pounds, and far less painful than the scheduled caesareans I'd already had. Shortly after she was born, the midwife said 'bet you wouldn't do that again in a hurry' ... I replied that I would do it again tomorrow. It was honestly that good!

Rochwen · 15/03/2006 11:02

Rachp, I'm not trying to be cheeky here but may I ask why your c/s hurt? I had a scheduled c/s and I had no pain whatsoever, neither during the op nor afterwards. Didn't they offer you painkillers? I had a spinal for the op, then a morhpine pump (the best invention ever, you get to administer the morphine yourself, as often and as much as you want it, I absoloutely loved it, couldn't get enough - I can see how people get hooked on opiates) and then ibuprofen and paracetamol for as long as I needed them. The first time I felt pain after the birth was when my I got sore nipples from breastfeeding - ouch.

gibberish · 15/03/2006 11:06

I remember my mum telling me that it is the worst pain imagineable, but no woman has ever passed out with it and the second it is over it turns into the best thing that can ever happen to you.

Piffle · 15/03/2006 11:07

Yes
And no one believes me
when I say I found it pretty painless and easy :)

krabbiepatty · 15/03/2006 11:11

Hmm, my hypnobirthing classes are telling me it will hurt a lot less if I don't expect pain (am on no 3 baby) and a lot of it is all these bad stories we hear etc etc. will let you know if there is any truth in this...

GDG · 15/03/2006 11:12

Yes, I'm honest but I do say it's doable and fabulous as well. There's no point pretending that for the majority of us it's the worst pain ever!!

gibberish · 15/03/2006 11:13

Could be some truth in that as trying to relax eases the pain a bit I found. I suppose if you go into it feeling terrified and tense, the pain will be worse. I imagine that is how gas and air works.

krabbiepatty · 15/03/2006 11:15

That's the idea with hypnobirthing - no fear = relaxation = much less pain. Or there's always pethidine (= pain still there but somehow you don't care)...

motherinferior · 15/03/2006 12:46

KP, ahem, how are you supposed not to expect pain third time round?

And we hear those stories because it, er, hurt.

(Actually my mum did tell me it didn't hurt, because birth didn't hurt her much. Still hurt me like mad. For about 36 hours, so no not 'just one day', actually.)

Kathy1972 · 15/03/2006 12:58

I would have liked to have been given more info about the particular circs in which it is likely to hurt more. Then when I had a back-to-back presentation I would have known I was normal, not a wimp, in wanting pain relief after 24 hours of pain and getting nowhere.
Midwives ought to know this as well - I had to fight like hell to get my epidural but it was only recently (when the idea of making women pay for epidurals was mooted) that I realised my epidural was one of the ones which would have counted as medically indicated in any case!

thelennox · 17/03/2006 14:12

Yes it hurts, but what about the bit after? I genuinely dont remember the pain just the euphoric feeling of having my baby in my arms. The pain is just your bodies way of getting your baby to you. Anyway no 2 labours are the same - my 1st was lovely and calm while my 2nd I used the gas and air mouthpiece as a battering ram and hollered! But the feeling at the end was exactly the same.

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