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?

sorry MP but I do believe that spiralling intervention, no continuity of care, no adequate care (emotional care), being in a brightly lit alien environment flat on your back, having several strangers in the room among many other things all contribute to the experience of many women in this country of childbirth as terrifying and painful.

it's not all about luck at all, although of course there is an element of that. we are not advised or shown the best ways of ensuring that the foetus is in the right position, that lots of gentle exercise and activity right up to and during the birth (walking for eg) help a lot etc etc.

i don't believe in lentil weaving natural births for all, hospitals can and do save lives, but what has got completely lost in the lifesaving is the fact that it is a primal, instinctual process, best undertaken in extremely familiar and intimate enviroment with trusted, known and experienced helper/s in attendance. i do think that those things make a big difference if and when they are possible.

have you all read misconceptions by naomi wolf? as well as kitzingers stuff, as well as lots of material by the royal college of midwives? i have (call me a control freak but i reckoned that knowledge was power) and i was astonished at how we are set up for really crappy, scarey births in the main in this country.

f*ck i have GOT to get on with crappy wading through treacle dissertation but haven't been as enlivened by a debate on mn for ages!@!!!

I agree, the reason that NCT 'graduates' are not experiencing wonderful natural births is because we are all shit scared in the first place, there is a terrible downward spiral of intervention which leads to dreadful things happening, thus making us all more shit scared because we have all heard the horror stories, and also, because the NCT antenatal classes are not actually, IME, very good

MP, you said-
*"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)"*

That wasn't puppuce that was me, and what I actually said was this-

*"I can see how it could be sexual, some women enjoy fisting, birth could be enjoyable for the same reasons.

Also, 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 then more power to her IMO!"*

-To answer your first point about fearing from experience- I think you're missing my point. I think any potential to relax into childbirth and enjoy it is hammered out of us by our culture and then after we have that first catastrophicly painful birth predicted by our expectations we fear even more and so the cycle continues in the next birth.
-To answer your second point- it simply isn't true that every culture throughout history has reported birth as the most "extreme and painful" human experience. Hyperbole is not proof, I hardly think you have evidence from every culture throughout history of your assertion, so don't make generalisations.
-To answer your third point- I was certainly not "blaming" any woman for not being able to extricate herself from this conditioning. I'd have to "blame" myself if that were the case. There's no fault in being programmed by you culture, certainly the culture of "extreme and painful" birth is incredibly pervasive in the most subtle of ways, I cannot imagine where to start describing it.
-To answer your last point- I think you've illustrated the culture of painful birth quite adequately with that one sentence: "A big fat baby rips its way out of your twat." Perhaps that was your unfortunate experience of birth, but even though my birth was not pain free it certainly does not describe my experience of it.

 <strong>*</strong>Next bit is not for the squeamish<strong>*</strong>               

My pet theory about orgasmic birth (as I have said earlier) is that women who enjoy deep penetration like fisting are the most likely to have orgasmic births simply because it trains one to relax the relevant muscles and enjoy the pain. Y'know, in an S&M kinda way. I don't think every woman is able to have an orgasmic birth because each individual woman has different preferences, some women find any penetration painful and I wouldn't predict an easy, let alone orgasmic, birth for them. Of course it doesn't follow that every woman who orgasms at birth is into deep penetration, but I think that it helps!

Sophable this is a deadly boring thread, now go and do your studying.

I actually think plenty of women come at childbirth expecting it to be pretty blissful, thanks to Mzz Kitzinger et al.

And frankly I think we've got enough to feel inferior about re pregnancy and childbirth (if, like me, you loathed every minute of being pregnant rather than glowing with fecund fck-me rotundity for nine months) and, as MB says, would personally rather not add 'didn't have orgasm' to the list of things I have failed to do in my various births.

Sorry should have phrased that as approach childbirth...

Blimey this is on discussions of the day!

Kitzinger does have a lot to answer for. (And a bit to take credit for, but that's another thread.)
I think her rhetoric has done quite a bit of emotional damage somewhere along the road, sadly.

"as MB says, would personally rather not add 'didn't have orgasm' to the list of things I have failed to do in my various births."

My god! This competitiveness about birth is ridiculous! You haven't "failed" because you haven't orgasmed at birth, everyone's experience of birth is individual and that's OK. It doesn't mean you have to rubbish those who experience a different sort of birth than you.

Oh I quite agree, however I honestly feel that having a 'good' birth (whatever that may be) depends largly on luck, and ditto an orgasm.

It has nest to bugger all to do with your attitude to life the univers , lentil weaving, herbal teas and perineum massage and *far more to do with the anatomy of your pelvis and the position, size and shape of your baby.

TThe attitude that being unaffected by the 'conditioning' that child bith is painful, is central to a pain free birth lends itself immediatly to the comment that if you do have pain, it is due to your own poor attitude. Whuich is a load of old toffee IMHO (lightly pissed, having had a wonderful lunch and family walk by the river.....sigh, blissful!)

"The attitude that being unaffected by the 'conditioning' that child bith is painful, is central to a pain free birth lends itself immediatly to the comment that if you do have pain, it is due to your own poor attitude."

Oh for goodness sakes! Why? Why can't you just be subject to conditioning and it NOT be your "fault"? Are you honestly under complete control of all of the conditioning in your life? All the potty training, all the behavioural training, all the social conditioning of your peers and parents, all the aspirations your're sold in the media, and so on and so on... To break such imbedded conditioning is incredibly difficult, try wearing a nappy grunting and pooping as shamelessly as a baby in front of strangers and you'll see what I mean!

And don't think I'm saying that women who orgasm at birth are fantastic because they have broken that conditioning. As I have said earlier I think that other experiences of enjoying deep penetration in an almost sadomosochistic way can override the "extreme and painful" conditioning. It doesn't require you meditate on your navel every day, just that you enjoy a certain type of sensation.

I'm intrigued by how threatened some of you are by this phenomena.

I am not in the slightest but threatened by this phenomina. You don't know me, you don't know anything about me, my life, or my sex life.

So lets stop making assumptions about specific people, shall we?

The issue with conditioning is that it is mind realted, and there is acultural bias to think that we are incontrol of our mind, far more than we in control of our bodies.

You only have to think about the stigama related to menal illness, as opposed to physical illness. How many mothers with PND have been told to 'pull themselves together', for example.

Issues relating to mental state are culturaly far more prone to judgement than physival limitation.

I can have an interesting discussion in this topic without personal mud comments, can YOu?

sorry, mud slinging

"Issues relating to mental state are culturaly far more prone to judgement than physival limitation."

Yup and I think we both feel that it is uancceptable to make judgements of that basis. I found your post a bit incoherent, though.

"I can have an interesting discussion in this topic without personal mud comments, can YOu?"

Yes, could you please tell me what mud I was slinging at you? I don't believe I was saying anything mean. I'm simply amazed that so many people are up in arms about an interesting anomaly and wonder why it is that people are so upset by it.

soryy, I rather felt that your comment abourt being 'threatened' by the thread were aimed at me, since you quoted only my post at the start of yours.....sorry if I misread you.

Incoherant....we somewhat....put it down to my birthday lunch.

However I do have major issues with people putting all of their easy birth down to factors that are , in part, in their control, positive attitude, imaging etc, while they forget the big dollup of good luck, approriate pelvic struture, position of the baby etc that make up most of the reason for their 'easy' birth.

Saying to women, 'you may well have had an orgasm during delivery, but are too conditioned by society to recognise it' is both silly and patronising, easpecialy when said by a man.

I'll freely admit that a positive mind helps, but not half as much as plain old good luck.

and again I am not 'up in arms' but having a nice, polite discussion...which is quite different to an argument.

This is interesting not emotive, as far as I am concerned.

"while they forget the big dollup of good luck, approriate pelvic struture, position of the baby etc that make up most of the reason for their 'easy' birth."

I would mostly agree with this. God knows, my DD's posterior positioning did not aid my enjoyment of birth!

"'you may well have had an orgasm during delivery, but are too conditioned by society to recognise it' is both silly and patronising, easpecialy when said by a man."

Oh, absolutely. I don't think we all orgasm but don't know it, I think those women who do orgasm are well aware of it. That said, I did make some surprisingly sexual moans just before I pushed DD out, maybe if I weren't so exhausted I would've been one of the lucky few!

at too tired to orgasm.

I was to too tried to do anything by lie still and breath in and out! LOL

Quite! :)

All women are sexual objects and everything they do must obviously be related to sex, because that's what we are here for isn't it?

all except knitting....oh and card making

So long as it's in a sexual way mb! Do you not orgasm whilst you knit?

Rhubarb, if it happens, it happens. I resent the oversexualisation of women as much as you, I'm sure, but it's not just men who report this.