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?

I think peachyclair is right - people on here are just aghast at the fact that women would ask a midwife to masturbate them, or make it known in the delivery room that they were having an orgasm - I mean you wouldn't generally do this in public would you, so why would you share this experience with anybody other than your partner then? It's just too private!!!

pruni, great post. totally with you on the primal stuff.

is the anti orgasming during childbirth lobby the same people that find calling children's genitals by their names 'sexualising' children by any chance?

[nearly called said lobby a bad name, but then thought better of it and am only a third of a bottle of wine down so better save myself]

Didn't happen to me, but I wouldn't have been unhappy if it had. I think you'd have to be in a headspace I wasn't in, 37 hours of labour on 3 days of sleepless nights isn't the most sensual place to be in!

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!

Definitely agree with this

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!

emkana, I see your point about privacy, but frankly I think birth should be private and anyone attending should be sensitive to that. Obviously asking the midwife to masturbate you or masturbating in front of staff is crossing a line, but if you happen to orgasm it's hardly under your control, is it? Has Mears commented? I'd be intrigued to hear if she has encountered an orgasmic birth (to her knowledge).

'so the problem isn't that women get turned on/orgasm during childbirth, but that they have the, what, audacity?, temerity? to tell anyone about it???? '

Not at all Soph, but if I were a MW I'd not be happy if someone asked me to masturbate them. its inappropriate. And actually, could be very intimdating. If a chap went up to a professional in a hospital and asked them to masturbate them, he'd be booted out, sharpish.

Beyond that, I think anybody who has an orgasm during labour is jolly lucky. If they can't keep quiet, they should take up camping- great for helping you practice that skill

peachyclair i don't think i have missed the point of:

it being "inappropriate", "demeaning", "disturbing", "masochistic"

what weird words to use to describe someone's experience of childbirth. i doubt whether the labouring woman would have asked the midwife in question if she wasn't in touch with the fact that labour can be a sexual experience. have you lot done NO reading at all about the fact that orgasms can bring on labour, speed up slow labours and definitely act as pain relief. the hormones produced by orgasm are the same as those we experience during and after childbirth, so far from being inappropriate, it is actually both appropriate and advisable to be open to a state of sexual arousal during labour. i didn't manage it, orgasm brought on my labour, but if there is a next time i will most definitely be open to the idea, it makes perfect sense.

Well said Sophable.
A colleague was a doula to a woman who orgasmed at birth... something she knew she couldn't tell everyone because of some of the previous replies posted below

Blimey this thread has taken on a life of it's own and become like a Daily Mail article.
Now I hve read it really carefully and NOONE I repeat NOONE has mentioned anything about asking a midwife to masturbate them .
it is a MYTH.
I have heard of women masturbating themselves in labour. Women do all sorts of odd things in labour - crying, mooing, screaming, crapping themselves. A great deal of it is entirely involuntary.
And, as it happens, clitoral stimulation is a generally accepted way to kickstart labout (release of hormones) so there is a really good physiological reason for it.
ACKcherly.

huzzah for harpsichordcarrier.

i think that the masturbate midwife reference was from sheila kitzinger wasn't it?

daily mail is right on the money.

ah yes the word of Kitzinger
she is a registered loon you know

asking mw to masturbate them is second post from OP

well if we were in court I would call that TRIPLE hearsay
urban bloody myth

not in court though are we?

though of course MN often feels like it

Sorry but AGAIN WHY would you ask your midwife to masturbate you?

At no point during the childbirth process was I actually separated from my clitoris.

THIS is the reason that people have a problem with this sort of "tale" - two posts in and there are tales of people are turning it into some kind of male lesbian fantasy! Getting wanked off by a midwife is hardly empowering and sensual is it?

what I mean is, PeachyClair, no-one has quoted any personal experience of asking midwives to masturbate them. It reminds me of all those stories about Loony Left councils banning black bags and baa baa balck sheep and all that.

And if a few women experience something like orgasm through the physiological process of childbirth, that's reasonable enough, but to turn it into some kind of porn show where women giving birth are finding it sexual and exciting, is bollocks.

Childbirth is not sexual or exciting, fgs. Let's not get all hippy and pretend it is.

I am just open mouthed at everyone getting on their high horse about something that has such a shaky basis in any kind of reality.
I mean if you fancied a wank in the delivery room there are two people you would ask first right?
your partner
then you
before some random stranger??

MP what are you on????? wtf does any of this have to do with a porn show? who is it who is being sick about this????

"A woman in California was giving birth at home in a portable birth tub and feeling very sexy and loving with her partner. Each time she had a contraction she would cry out, 'Oh, baby, I love it. More...more!' Her windows were open because it was July, and soon a crowd gathered outside her home. When the baby was born amidst shouts of 'Yes!!! Yes!!! Oh, my God, yes!!!' her neighbors gave her a great round of applause. They only realized that it was a birth after they heard the cries of a baby."
-From Gentle Birth Choices, by Barbara Harper, R.N. '

This is the kind of "evidence" we have

hmm

This gets weirder and weirder. Someone quotes someone else as quoting Sheila Kitzinger and now we all think there are weirdy women out there who are trying to get a free handjob from their midwife...
Get a grip

there is a section on pg erotica on the born free website.

granted that porn and erotica are not always synonymous, but if i'm honest, i'm too scared to look at that bit og the website

haha I have visions of a woman in stirrups with her arms in drips

'golly I can't do it myself would you mind?'

Oh I see SophABLE.
Because I don't want to share my orgasms with all and sundry, I am an uptight prude right?
As I said before,some things are better kept private (and its actually more fun that way)

Harpsi,you are really going to have to rein in that errant apostrophe.It has a life of it's own.