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?

Ha ha ha

Just logged on for first time in ages and oddly my baby is due today. Can't wait for the orgasmic experience of my life now!!!!!! yahoo

should I ask dh to add some sex toys to my labour bag just incase then?

rhubarb, your post is open and clear. i just happen to think that yes it does mean that you seem to have certain issues with sex if you think that sexuality and childbirth should be strictly demarcated for fear of the labour (and baby?) being 'debased'. really really don't get why you feel that should be the case. it seems to me that some women find childbirth less painful and more pleasurable than others. how it is that that is interpreted as being designed to make others feel guilty i really really don't get. at all.

I don't understand your post either. Childbirth is a scary thing, of course it is! Are you telling me that you weren't even the teeniest bit frightened of giving birth?

What my views are of sex has nothing to do with this topic. This is about sexual practices during childbirth - not about my sex life or issues I may or may not have about sex. I believe that women are too often sexualised by a male society. I understand that birth is a product of sex, but I do not understand those who would want to sexualise it further.

Let me ask you this. Would you have a wank in front of a virtual stranger? Would you ask a female stranger to masturbate you at all? No? Then I cannot understand why you do not get my post. When you give birth you have at least one midwife present, to ask one of them to masturbate you, or, as some men on certain sites have suggested, to ask your partner to go down on you in front of these midwives is just a bit too gross for my imagination.

Sorry that you don't understand and that you think that I have sexual issues. I think that you probably misunderstand me like so many on this thread and I now think that I shouldn't give a crap who thinks what of me. If it boils down to you thinking that I have sexual issues then I think it has gone too far and I bid you goodnight.

Rhubarb, I know you gave birth at home but do you really imagine that women have midwives with them all the time? in my local hospital, each midwife is looking after 3/4 women at once. SO for much of the time many women are with their partners.
Also, do you not accept that for many women this action might be subconsious? Women during childbirth/labour go into their own world. Many have spoken to me about "losing themselves" in labour and not being fully in control of themselves. Clitoral stimulation does, undoubtedly, release the hormones which stimulate contractions.

oh rhubarb don't be like that. we'll have to agree to disagree on this one i think. i wasn't scared of childbirth, i guess i was lucky in that i read and read and read and read and i knew both how easy and amazing it could be and how utterly awful and horrendous (my sister had a really painful and traumatic first birth before i got pregnant).

i wouldn't ask a stranger to masturbate me. but my midwives were absolutely not strangers and anyway, it would be dh that did that if i wanted him to (and my midwives asked a few times during the three days that i was labouring if we wanted to be alone together to do just that).

sexual stimulation is certainly not for everyone during labour, but our physiologies and what we know about the hormones secreted before and during labour imply to me that it is entirely appropriate if it is a woman's choice.

i don't think that loving sex can ever be debasing tbh.

Sophable, I do get defensive when people start to judge my sex life based on comments I have made! For the record there is nothing debasing about loving sex, but yes, I was one of those who couldn't really do it during late pregnancy as I felt there was someone else there! It's not for me and these websites that are largely male occupied make me see red. I also do feel strongly for those women who have hard bloody hard labours - see my point on not bragging about a smooth birth.

I don't really want to be on this thread anymore as I feel that my sex life and hang-ups are being brought into question, which isn't fair. I stand by my last but one post and wish to God I'd left it at that!

rhubarb it is absolutely as it should be that you didn't have sex during pregnancy when you didn't feel like it. it would be really terrible if you had.

if it's any consolation my birth traumatised dh so much he doesn't want another baby :(

i've just been reacting to the fact that it feels like you've been condemning those that do get and act on sexual feelings in labour. that's all.

sophable, did your midwives actually ask whether you wanted to be alone with dh to have sex/for him to masturbate you?

My god, I must be such a prude, I would just die with embarrassment...

btw I'm due to give birth any minute now so I'll happily report back.

that or massage me, comfort me whatever, but definitely if we had been up for that, that was openly in the equation yes....in their experience it helps....

Ahem. I felt something close to it during labour with ds. I assume it was to do with the g spot, it only lasted a minute and totally shocked me because no-one tells you about it, as this thread proves. The rest of it was bloody painful and hard work but I have to say that couple of minutes shocked me senseless. I suppose I could change my name but I can't be arsed. Second time round I can very definitely say there wasn't even one second of pleasure, except when it was all over.

Isn't it generally accepted that the hormones used in love making and childbirth are the same ones? Pupuce? So I don't think this is that gobsmacking tbh although I think women who feel any kind of pleasure are massively in the minority and I don't include myself in that minority btw, it was 99.9% agony and hideousness, both times.

Yup, www. Oxytocin levels are apparently high at the moment of orgasm. Oxytocin is also the hormone that makes the uterus contract during childbirth (and controls the milk ejection reflex when breastfeeding as well).

So, draw your own conclusions, I guess...

Ok, once more (sigh) WHERE DOES IT SAY THAT I CONDEMN THOSE WHO HAD AN ORGASM DURING CHILDBIRTH? DID I NOT SAY THAT THOSE WHO DID ARE LUCKY?

And as I am not the only poster on this thread to say that I feel uncomfortable with this topic, I do feel somewhat picked on and somewhat like this right now!

One more person bloody misquotes me and I bloody report this thread!

Good luck emkana!

It just seems a bit odd to me..if someone develops sexual feelings during labour then fair enough. But to anticipate them, on the basis of this website for instance, to plan to have them, even to hope to have them - our culture is so sexualised as it is.
From this angle the world really does look mad.

Rhubarb, calm down! Please? No-one's saying anything horrible are they, afai can see it's all polite disagreement and discussion (but have only skimmed thread).

Snafu, thought so, thanks.

Yes, I do think anticipating them might be er, setting people up with unrealistic expectations MT!

oh fgs go and talk to a few independent midwives. it is neither weird nor sexualising anything to anticipate or hope to have them.

and rhubarb, correct me if i'm wrong but i think that you are condemning a woman that masturbates during labour right? that is what i was answering.

I just hate being misquoted WWW, and when others have posted the same but you alone are picked out, it does make you seethe a bit. And to top it off I have sexual issues! Yeah, I'm kinda angry about that one!

Okay, okay, not arguing with anyone here!

I'm not, I mean!

unrealistic given the current climate www (vis this thread for eg) but not unrealistic given our physiologies. and no i'm not saying that women should try to achieve orgasm or even hope to, just that there is nothing remotely inappropriate about them doing so.

Soph, she just doesn't get it as far as I can tell, and neither do I - don't call the cops!

I had a long labour and my endorphins were making me sky high. I definitely felt something which had the process of orgasm, but without he sensation, if that makes sense. It wasn't pleasurable in the way that orgasm is, but my body was doung something along the same lines. Never really thought of this as either an embarrassment or any sort of advantage or benefit, either!

I think mws must be pretty clued up to this. During the final hour of 'hmmm, are we getting anywhere with this' discussions, the mws sent dp and I upstairs to try nipple stimulation 'and anyting else that you think might help'...we did try fiddling about with my nipples, nothing else!

You're talking about very personal opinions Soph There is no right or wrong. Let it go, please.

"i just happen to think that yes it does mean that you seem to have certain issues with sex"

Ok, this quote got me angry. Sorry Sophable but I hope you can see why! I am happy to agree to disagree but only if you can kindly retract this phrase please.