Midwives say women should pay for epidurals

[TheDullWitch]

At least £500 a baby it says here

Greensleves, I think you are being a tad reactionary - but this is a very emotive subject. I don't think Eve is saying you've had a lesser experience her, but maybe is guilty of judging the situation on her own experience and not allowing for the fact that bonding after drug aided deliveries can be just as amazing as those without. I breastfed immediately and didn't sleep for two days after my epidural and delivery - but like I said, it's not a competition. We should try to focus on the things we experienced in common, as I bet they out number the the things that we didn't.

I don't think it is possible to say that your own experience was better without the implication being that the other person, whose experience differed from yours, was somehow lesser. Eve hasn't got the faintest idea what effect pain relief has on bonding. Not a clue. No, it shouldn't be a competition - but unfortunately there's always some smug person who didn't need pain relief and feels compelled to make everyone else feel as though they did it wrong. It annoys me. Unsurprisingly.

I know but we live and learn

hopefully (that's my emoticon limit reached for the day!)

and calling someones opinions ignorant is fair is it?

i gave an explanation of my definition of the word bonding. every women bonds with her child every day of their life, not just once at birth.

i didn't mean the councelling comment to be patronising, it just sounds like your angry at alot more than what was said here, and reading your story you have a right to be.

I had a drug free birth (not by choice)and after dd was born all I remember was shock at the sudden cessation of pain. No rush of warm feeling or anything just a kinda 'bloody hell glad that's over'.

Having had forceps with ds I think the best part of drug free labour for me was the quick recovery although I am sure quick recovery is possible with epidural if managed properly.

Breastfeeding for me was the thing that slowed down bonding (bloody agony still hurts 13mths on). Subject for a different thread.
I remember feeling really guilty at not having a natural birth with ds and felt this way for a long time. Crazy I know! Felt like I had let him down.

Well, to be fair, I'd hope that if I was unaware of another perspective someone would tell me I was judging a situation by the limits of my own ignorance. What's wrong with that? That's how we learn, isn't it? Happens all the time to me here. That's why I prefer it to (whisper) netmums

But your opinion is ignorant in the most literal sense of the word, Eve. You have no knowledge at all with which to judge the quality of bonding between a mother and child where there has been pain relief, epidural or otherwise. If you don't want to be called ignorant, don't post your opinions on things you know nothing about.

And of course it was patronising to suggest that my response to you is based on my need for counselling. If I am expressing negative feeling towards you, and you are interpreting it as anger, that is probably because your ignorant opinions about other people's deeply personal experiences are very irritating to me. You know even less about my general state of mind than you do about other people's birth experiences.

I've had two pain-relief-free births and think that the opinion that it somehow helps with bonding is arse.

Pithy as ever HM

I think bonding takes place over about 40 years

I'm of the Drosophila school of bonding - instant relief when the pain stops

DP too, he was terribly traumatised by it - more than me!

I remember looking at DS thinking who are you?? it was mad!

Of course, the DPs/DHs don't get the pain, but they manage to bond too.
Actually maybe that is why there are so many absent fathers - do you think if we made them suffer more it would help?

I can see Greensleeves why you are upset but i can also see where Eve is coming from. The mistake i think you'r making Eve is 'assuming' that bonding is easier without painrelief. You don't actually know as you haven't done it with pain releif but i see what you're saying.
However Greensleeves, saying there's always some 'smug' person saying they've done it woithout painrelief is just as bad. Doing it without drugs doesn't neccessarily make you smug
which you implied.

Doing it without drugs is fine, I haven't criticised that choice - but being smug about it afterwards, and implying that you were able to bond "better" with your baby because of it, that's objectionable.

Message withdrawn

Hey, I'm always smug, with or without drugs.

Or did I not really get this argument?

I haven't read all the posts but this article infuriated me when I read it the other day. I had an epidural with ds1 and thank god for that because it was a 19 hour labour and he got stuck. With ds2 it was 2 and a half hours and he was practically climbing out himself so no pain relief was necessary. After experiencing both I can tell you it totally depends on your labour experience. I would like to see anyone try and have my first with no pain relief. There is no bloody medal at the end of it, women should get whatever pain relief they like to help them through a very stressful and frightening experience. I can't believe midwives said this actually.

I agree with bosscat here. There are plenty of mums who have given birth both with and without pain relief. It depends on the experience and the lenght of time you are in pain IMO.
I think it's insulting to suggest you bond easier with your baby without pain relief. As insulting as it is to suggest you don't bond as easily if you have a c-section, if you don't bf etc...That is not giving information about how women can give birth without pain relief, but suggesting some sort of failure if you need to scream for the epidural. remember most women who do end up with an epidural do experience considerable amount of pain too. I don't know who these women are who ask for pain relief with the first contraction. If they do exist, then fine. Their choice!
I think this becomes a debate about who is worthy and who is not worthy of an epidural. I note that most on this thread would probably say I was "worthy" of mine. However, my midwife at the time promised me my baby would pop out in 20 minutes. 10 hours later, I was only 2 centimeters dilated. It's frightening if midwives should decide who needs one as in my book so many of them are clearly clueless.

What is this initiative really about? Is it really about the money? Surely not.There are plenty of other areas in the NHS to cut money. I think it's about power. Any other suggestions?

I am not sure how much merit personal experience has on a thread like this, but I was drugged up to the eyeballs and I experienced what was for me unbelievably strong feelings for my ds when he was born.

To be honest, if it would have been more intense without drugs, I am glad I had them, as I am not sure if I could have stood it. I don't feel I missed out on anything.

I always classed 'bonding' in that same category w/'advanced' - a Western construct to try to make something very basic to the human race into something that only applies to a select few.

Crap.

I had purposely stayed away from this thread because after posting my birth story I didn't want it to seem like I had a vendetta on the subject. However, this thread keeps popping up and I have now been sucked in

I went through a lot of unnecessary pain because I had bought into the whole load of crp that an epidural would slow down the birth process, make me more likely to have a c-section and interfere with the bonding process of my baby. Well, after enduring 30 hours of excruciating* pain before getting an epidural I can say that I now feel like an idiot for my earlier views. I was totally brainwashed by people such as Dr. Sears (The Birth Book) and Ina May Gaskin (Spiritual Midwifery).

I also agree completely with the poster(s) who said that this will mean poor women will suffer the most. Why, oh why, in society do the most vulnerable seem to get one blow after another? I do think our "modern" society has such an ingrained misogyny that many of us don't even realize that is where many of these policies originate.

Jabberwocky, what a horrendous experience you had and please don't take this as an attack on you in any way, but I think it was the incompetance of the proffesionals who repeatedly examined you and didn't realise your baby was breech. You should have had a c section immediately and the way you were treated was appalling. But not all women have this experience - I was offered an epidural and turned it down and I am very glad I did. I don't think the advice Dr Sears gives on epidurals should be discounted because of your experience trying to birth a baby that was not going to be born vaginally.