"It's good for women to suffer the pain of a natural birth"

[Qally]

...says a Professor of Midwifery.

"A large number of women want to avoid pain. Some just don't fancy the pain [of childbirth]. More women should be prepared to withstand pain. Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby."

Apparently epidurals on demand are bad. The correct person to determine the amount of pain a woman is in is not the woman herself.

"The NHS should abandon routine pain relief and embrace a new "working with pain" approach which would encourage women to use yoga, hypnosis, massage, support from their partners, hydrotherapy and birthing pools as natural ways of alleviating their pain"

All said by a man, who has no idea what actually birthing is like. It's not so appalling for people with easy labours, but what about people who have a terrible time? Induced labours? Who the hell is he to tell people whose pain was severe enough to leave them with PTSD that it's good for them?

It's obviously great to offer the kind of support he's advocating, and to make sure women are properly informed about the risks of a cascade of intervention. But offering those alternative methods instead, instead of as well? How is that supporting women's choices? And why is lessening acute pain only this controversial for birthing women?

FGS I have a clear memory of after being given pethidine and whilst clinging on to the g&a for dear life saying to the midwife 'why would anyone do this without drugs, why???' She smiled and said 'I don't know dear' in a kind of 'you're clearly off your face and I'm going to agree with everything you say' kind of way..

Saying that we should encourage women to try to work with pain because avoiding epidurals would give a better outcome is one thing. But to suggest that women who are able to do this are better mothers, just insulting, misogynistic, and generally a really crap thing to say.

This is just crap! Has this man ever been in intense pain in his life? Perhaps we should be adding to the pain for women who have quick, bearable labours (as my third was) and slowing the process down so they can suffer as much as other women and thus be just as good mothers?

He should be sacked.

there is a reason for pain in labour - makes you get in best position to deliver your baby

Well pain when you break your leg also serves a useful purpose - to tell you not to walk on it and get it fixed.

So next time Professor whatsit breaks a limb, we will tell him to be more prepared to endure the pain, because that will make him more of a man. After all if we give him pain relief, he might do something silly like try to run a marathon.

I love that they talk of the 'discomfort' of childbirth, I mean what is all the fuss about? I know two people who had forceps delivery without epidural, so isn't the case that everyone opting for less pain relief gets intervention free birth..

Wonder if he was one of the dad's at my one day antenatal class?

When the group was discussing epidurals, he piped up that he thought they were a bad idea and they wouldn't be having one!!!!!!

He then went on to say that "If a mum has an an epidural, she won't be able to bond with her baby as she hasn't had the opportunity to empathise with the baby and the pain it felt during birth"

I felt like inserting something rather large up his rectum, say something about 3.5kg and then asking him to pass it without any pain relief.
Might have been a bit difficult as I think his head was probably up there already

Thanks Libras, I half heartedly read it last time, but now I've done it once and know what I'm letting myself in for, I am more keen to give it a go.

We had one like that at our ante-natal group, Flappy. His poor wife didn't half look embarrassed.

Please read the presentation that this article was based on. The Observer piece doesn't really reflect his views that well (selective reporting anyone? )

That link is to his lecture notes, not the lecture, but, having read them, I don't see any real gap. His views on helping women have a less medicalised labour are great, as several have already said. His refusal to accept that pain hurts and we're biologically programmed to avoid it because it's acutely unpleasant is still pretty aggravating. There's nothing wrong with making an informed choice, and supporting women who feel they would rather cope with the pain than have analgesics - and everything wrong with a man lecturing women on how pain makes them a better parent, and labour pain is a positive pain, and is okay because they'll forget about it afterwards, IMO. It's very paternalistic actually, which is ironic given he regards pain relief as being so.

I'm strongly reminded of the Victorian docs who disapproved of the use of anaesthetic for women in labour back in the nineteenth century on the grounds that only cowardly and unnatural women would try to get out of their natural and Bible-decreed pain.

Fortunately, Queen Victoria requesting pain relief for the birth of her eighth child (so one can suppose that she knew jolly well what she was in for) shut most of 'em up.

All very well but not sure it's healthy pain when starts to send your blood pressure up too high and send babies heart rate up - I was all for natural crap til talked round by doctor and dh. Glad they did

And agree with libra and stealth re hypnobirthing. Helped me get though with breathing and visualization - as said before ended up being managed but did get me a fair way through to that point

I hate these "pain is liberating" and associated shite peddlars.

I have chronic pain syndrome. I am am in pain every bloody day of my life, does it make me more able to bond with life because I'm suffering?
No, it makes me tired and irritable and unable to lead a normal life.

I LOVED my epidural, the first pain free 9 hours in 5 years and it was wonderful!

I was completely able to bond with my DD because I was awake, responsive and in no pain!

My experience of labour is the women screaming abuse at their partners...not a very bonding experience for anyone, my MIL pulled the birth room sink off the wall while giving birth and my SIL broke 2 of my brother's fingers.

I suggest the said Prof has his fingers broken by a woman in labour and has them set with no pain relief..it's only natural!

Miggsie, I have always said I would hate to have an epidural (and hope to avoid one next time) but in your situation I can see why it would be quite welcome
"the first pain free 9 hours in 5 years"

Let's trying switching this approach to the other major agonising life event: death. How does it look there?

• - -

Dr Denis Wilsh, one of the country's most influential end of life care specialists, today hit out at what he called a ?pain relief epidemic? within palliative services. Pain-relieving drugs, including morphine injections, carry serious medical risks, diminish death as a rite of passage and prevent thousands of patients from experiencing death as nature intended.

"A large number of people want to avoid pain. Some just don't fancy the pain [of dying]. More people should be prepared to withstand pain," he told the Observer. "Pain in dying is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits.?

?We?ve known for decades that the agony of death prepares people for the shedding of their mortal body and entry into the next world. In previous centuries enlightened authorities even helped sinful souls by using burning at the stake to prepare them for hellfire,? he continued.

"In the west it has never been safer to die, yet it appears that people have never been more frightened of the processes," Walsh said.

Celebrity deaths such as that of Jade Goody, and television portrayals of death as a highly medicalised process have added to a culture where pain relief seems normal, even though dying pains are natural, healthy and temporary, he said.

In a sharply worded critique of the rising popularity of pain-free death, Walsh warns that normal death is in danger of being "effectively anaesthetised by the analgesic epidemic" in the NHS. A widespread "antipathy to dying pain" has emerged in the past 20 years and combined with increased patient rights and risk-averse doctors to create a situation where almost all hospitals now offer pain relief on demand, even if that is not in the patient?s or family?s interests.

The NHS should abandon routine pain relief and embrace a new "working with pain" approach which would encourage patients to use yoga, hypnosis, massage, support from their partners, hydrotherapy and dying pools as natural ways of alleviating their pain, he said.

"Over recent decades there has been a loss of 'rites of passage' meaning to death, so that pain and stress are viewed negatively," said Walsh. Patients should be told that dying pain is a timeless component of the "rites of passage" transition to the next world, he added.

Mary Oldburn of the National Dying Trust, the end of life charity, said Walsh's comments were timely and important. She blamed inadequate end of life education, lack of palliative nurse-run death centres and the fact that 93% of deaths happened in hospital for creating the "pain relief culture".

I had a straightforward birth and remember being APPALLED that many women have no choice of pain relief and how barbaric that is. I had gas and air and did accept the fucking excrutiating pain as part of the whole giving birth thang, but what a total and utter fuck wit that person is.

And as for that utter shit about the pain of dying, I do not know where to begin. Most people do suffer a lot of pain on the way to death and they should not have to. Jesus Christ, the arrogance of such people writing this crap!

nickytwotimes: the above was a parody of the Walsh comments.

Pretty much everyone accepts that reducing pain in dying is an important goal. It's fantastic that the palliative care movement has brought about so much (but not yet enough) change during the last decades.

Why can people like Walsh not accept that reduced pain in childbirth is also progress?

Excuse my stupidity! I am a numptie this evening.

Bloody brilliant parody, yes. Of course people accept pain relief in death and should do the same for any incredibly painful life event.

I'm imagining Walsh will be wanting the morphine one day. Possibly quite soon if some of the women commenting here or on the Observer article get hold of him!

Well what he does with his vagina is entirely up to him.

But it's drugs for me every time, thanks.

What an idiot.

That's like saying someon about to undergo an amputation should not routinely be offered an anaesthetic/pain relief.

Why should women uffer if the pain is avoidable?

I am relieved to find so much support for pain relief from this thread after reading the headlines this morning. I'm 9 months pregnant with a very large baby (according to my midwife) and it's lying in the posterior position. So was my last baby.

I had a 32 hour labour last time and was given the epidural I'd been screaming for all night just 2 hours before he was born. If they think I'm going through all that unnessessary pain again without an epidural, they've a fight on their hands!!

I heard this guy talking this morning on the radio and feel that he has been misrepresented in the papers somewhat. Ok he has never given birth but with 25 years of midwifery experience I imagine he has seen a lot of wonderful and horrific birthing experiences. On the radio he was saying that he supports epidural for long painful deliveries but a normal and healthy labour is painful in a way that with appropriate support actually supports the progress of the birth. If you have an epidural too early on you can actually inhibit the second stage of labour and aren't doing yourself any favours. Some of you are jumping to conclusions about this HIGHLY EXPERIENCED mans motives.
One massive problem with giving elective early epidurals is that there is currently no secure evidence base on their longterm effects, whereas we know the benefits of other pain-relief options including non-medical interventions like birth support/waterbirth/breathing.

For the record I had an 18hour labour and a late medically neccessary epidural thank you very much experienced as much of the pain as I needed too and I think that it is part of labour and part of the rite of passage of motherhood.