Orgasm during childbirth?! Tell me this is a lie!!

[kitegirl]

A friend of mine has a very competitive MIL. This friend has just given birth to her first, a nightmare labour with every possible intervention you could imagine (she's cool about it, bless her). Her MIL won't stop going on how amazing all her births were, saying how she just 'breathed the babies out' and how all her births were such ecstatic, spiritual experiences that she actually had an orgasm during each one!

Now I know a birth can be enjoyable, but an orgasm??? I've never heard this happening. Is this a case of one-upmanship? I told my friend that there's only one place to find out and that's Mumsnet... so what do you think?

d'you know, though, mb, my faintly-dotty-American-nonsense radar are pretty finely tuned but I just don't read that the same way as you.
He's not saying they can't tell the difference, he's talking about a complicated expectation-perception difference that in any other arena we might accept without question (eg taste perception).

Actually, I think Pruni may have it. He is being very tentative, ie. "it may even be". He sounds as surprised as the orgasming parents were, really.

and the text is written by a husband , of his wife's birth experience. Another male expert.

While orgasm may well haeen for some, 'painless'?

I have lots of freind who have very positive births, home births with no pain meds needed at all, but none of them said it was 'painless'. They were in control, for sure, even found it a very positive experience, but 'Painless'? No pain at all*? This is a man deciding what he saw IMHO.

Bugger that the search is next touseless - about 18 months ago I started a thread on painless labour, fully expecting no responses, and blimey if it didn't go on for about 50 posts. It does happen adn there are Mners who will testify to it.
(Sorry to argue with you on your birthday and all!)

and again for them, good luck. However I think you have to be very careful in explaining why this happens to some and not to others.

My feeling is that the physiology and anatomy of the mother and position of the baby is central to this issue.

While I would freely admit that bein psychologicaly positive can do much to reduce the perception of pain, over do this side of the argument and you are essentialy telling women that the pain was their 'fault' (if you like) for not being positive enough about the birth.

To say it is helpful, yup, I'm in on that one. But sites like the one I quote and almost monomaniaical....and can only see one reason for pain, and only one reason for orgasm. Wheras the truth is a much more complex issue.

Is it your birthday MB?
Penblwydd Hapus!

lol at line about 'embracing inner lentil weaver'
Is lentil weaver common parlance or just MN argot?

Ever the scientist eh MB?
I like it.

refined by MN I think {grin]

I can just see this as another area for guilt for women (toungue in cheek emoticon neede here)

'I had a fully natural birth'

'I did too and I had an orgasm'

'Only one?'

lol

I can't see that something that caused my most sensitive flesh to be torn asunder could ever induce orgasm frankly.

But hey,each to their own.

"While I would freely admit that bein psychologicaly positive can do much to reduce the perception of pain, over do this side of the argument and you are essentialy telling women that the pain was their 'fault' (if you like) for not being positive enough about the birth.

To say it is helpful, yup, I'm in on that one. But sites like the one I quote and almost monomaniaical....and can only see one reason for pain, and only one reason for orgasm. Wheras the truth is a much more complex issue."

I do absolutely and totally agree with that. But there has to be space for acknowledging that for some, the positivity thing is going to work and painlessness and orgasm are as natural as pain and, er, more pain. ()

LOL at lentil-weaver - I do use it now in RL and then stop myself in case I am outed...

"there has to be space for acknowledging that for some, the positivity thing is going to work and painlessness and orgasm are as natural as pain and, er, more pain" (Pruni)

I don't think that this has anything to do with "the positivity thing" and I think it has everything to do with luck.

If it was to do with the "positivity thing" then we would have lots of NCT-graduates with fabulous births instead of exactly the same intervention rate and (in some studies) higher perceptions of pain than people who haven't had any antenatal classes on the matter.

I also really disagree with:

"I suspect that all women in our society are programmed to find birth painful by constant reiteration of how terrible it is in our culture. If a woman can remove herself from that conditioning" (pupuce)

For some many reasons, including:

• Many women on here have said that the worry about childbirth the second time around was far greater than the first time. They are not speaking from pre-conceived ideas but from experience.
• The notion of childbirth as the most extreme and painful human experience is written about in every culture over thousands of years.
• "If a woman can remove herself from that conditioning" implies that women who do find childbirth painful - or indeed horrific - are at fault in not being able to rise above mere conditioning.
• A big fat baby rips its way out of your twat. Let's not romanticise it. For most people it IS going to be the most physically horrific experience of their lives. That is why it is always referred to in conversations as the most awful pain imaginable (and why "I would rather do X than give birth again!" is always a shocking statement)

Very intelligently put MP.

mp yes it is to do with luck and I am not trying to downplay that, but for some women, surely, harnessing a bit of the same feeling that you might use when eg making a speech to 500 people, or going to a yoga class, or whatever, might make it all a bit less of a trauma. And if that idea is constantly turned on its head to make it mean that not thinking in that way is a cause for self-blame then we lose what might have been a useful tool, which wouldn't work for everyone (because I do think that birth and all that goes with it is bigger than a few breathing exercises and finding your happy place) but might be just the ticket for some.
This is not the same thing at all as saying that fgs sake if everyone just relaxed then we'd all have stress-free births and if you can't do that it's a failing.

You've lost me Pruni.

I don't think there are any "tools" or "tricks" we can teach women to help them during childbirth. If you find something helpful, that's brilliant, but that doesn't mean jack to anyone else.

I think this kind of language is The Great Lie.

Phew I lost myself there.

I don't agree, mp.
There is no One Answer though, unfortunately.

I don't think that saying that because women are more scared of giving birth second time round, it's conclusive proof that being positive doesn't work - because they only have experience of their first birth iyswim.

Not sure it's possible for anyone to make sense on this subject though

Bizarrely I was exploring the provenance of that term only yesterday and managed to excavate the original \link{http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110000249774&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1\lentil weaver thread} :)

This just gets more and more surreal...

6 PET FLEECE BLANKETS 2 COLOURS DOG OR CAT NEW AND BAGG

LOLOLOL

oops sorry will be back with the proper link in a minute

Don't - was v funny

Orgasm during childbirth? Sounds like a Channel4 pseudo-documentary.

\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=4&threadid=117328\the lentil weavers link}

am crying with laughter about the dog or cat blankets, sorry about that

(I did have a brief skim of blanket link to see if I'd missed anything particularly yoghurt-knitty about pet comforters )