Chief midwife tells women that they should endure the pain of natural childbirth

[MissM]

Here.

It's too early in the morning to get my blood pressure up, but my response was off. Have you ever felt like you were going to split in two? No, because you're a man, and you've never bloody given birth!

Tosser.

Fuckwit.

Why should anyone have to suffer unnecessary pain? It's the 21st century ffs, not medeival times.

As far as I know there are no medals handed out for going through labour without any pain relief but please, correct me if I'm wrong.

If a woman wants to attempt it and sees it as some sort of personal challenge or way to score brownie points among her peers, fine, but leave the people who want to get through it as quickly and as painlessly as possible alone.

If I had my time again I would have an elective CS so I didn't have to suffer one labut twinge. The pain post CS was nothing compared to the pains of labour. YUCK.

And all that "it's called labour because its hard work" crap. When was that phrase first coined? 1800?

If there is no need for it to be painful then what suffer it? Do people go to the dentist and expect a root filling to be done without anaesthetic? No, of course they don't. Would they expect to have a mole removed without local anaesthetic? Would they expect a minor gynae procedure to be performed without anaesthetic? Of course they wouldn't and would probably be horrified if they were expected to go without.

So why is childbirth seen as being so different? Why do people think and feel that suffering has to be "part of the whole experience"? It's crap!

To be fair to Dr Walsh, his presentation (it wasn't an article as far as I can see, note to slack Observer journo, so I can't read the full text) is saying a lot more than "labour pain? Just suck it up."

In fact, he's looking at why hospitals are increasingly giving this as the only option for relieving pain & stress of labour given that women are routinely left alone for hours in uncomfortable surroundings.

"Never been safer to have a baby, women never been more frightened" - I think he's looking at why this is.

Not sure if prolonged knacker-crushing is necessarily required (yet) on the strength of a possibly misquoting Observer article..

"Emerging evidence [shows] that normal labour and birth primes the bonding areas of a mother's brain better than caesarean or pain-free birth"

i'm paticularily interested in that bit as i once said similar on here and got torn to pieces for daring to suggest the pain helped me to bond.

but for me it did, i found the pain of labour horrendous yet at the same time utterly exhilerating and the thought of being in a foggy blur due to drugs in those first awesome moments frightens me, those moments were the most exhilerating, loving, proud and phenomenally happy of my entire life

i think modern society has made us unable to distinguish positive pain from negative pain... we have so many painkillers available for every ache and twinge we no longer understand that pain has a function... to warn us of a physical problem, to tell us to stop doing something, to tell us we need to slow down and rest, etc. if anyone doubts the need for pain you only have to look at those poor kids with the condition that causes them to feel no pain... it's shocking and awful how badly it affects them.

labour pain serves a purpose, if a woman can just ride with it instead fo fighting it and dulling it the birth outcome is usually far better. more efffort needs to be made to educate and support women in natural birth.

his tone is awful though, if he'd just focused on talking about the positive effects of natural birth instead of insulting and ridiculing those who received pain relief he could have had some valid points.

although, one thing he said is true, over here there is an epidural epidemic, after all three of my births i was asked by multiple women whether i'd 'had the epi?' and when i said no i was variously laughed at, scorned and told i was 'mad' no, i just never reached a point of feeling like i needed it... each to their own

only that could come from a man ,lets see him give birth,tosser

where is this epidural epidemic? because i gave birth in two hospitals in large cities and had to wait hours for one.

Following on from my earlier post, perhaps all the people who don't want any form of pain relief during labour and delivery, and who just prefer people to support them instead, could also take the same approach to other procedures that need to be performed in hospitals?

They could be persuaded to have no pain relief for all manner of medical procedures, provided they had the right support - breathing techniques, massage etc. I'm sure there are all sorts of medical procedures far less painful and challenging then childbirth, which they would ordinarily be anaethetised for, which they could manage to go through without pain relief - given the right support of course.

That would mean a huge saving in the NHS in terms of meds/resources etc and would free up resources for all those people like me who are refused elective c-sections on the grounds of lack of resources.

After all, it's all supposed to be about choice these days isn't it?

"i think modern society has made us unable to distinguish positive pain from negative pain... we have so many painkillers available for every ache and twinge we no longer understand that pain has a function... to warn us of a physical problem, to tell us to stop doing something, to tell us we need to slow down and rest, etc."

Err Pinktulips, yes, you feel the pain, you uderstand what it's telling you and then you use medication to stop it.

By the same token we should stop giving pain relief during dentist work, the benefits of which will remind us to brush our teeth more often

I agree with him. I think there's a lot to be said for the endurance side of birth and for me it has had far reaching effects on my confidence.

however, the medicalisation of birth has made the pain in some cases absolutely unbearable. All my births were at home with no intervention so the pain was all mine IYSWIM. I might not be so stoical if, for example, I'd been induced or unable to pace around or lean on furniture etc.

I don't see the point in blaming men however. It's such a fantastic, amazing and powerful thing to be a woman who actually grows new life inside her and gives birth to it. You could equally say men are denied this. I don't see the point in turning on men.

His presentation is interesting, I think the article may have been quoting out of context. He does flag up issues such as lack of continuity in care, need for greater support to enable a better experience. He does also highlight the positive impacts of epidurals.

It appears the Observer has jumped on the most newsworthy quote of his presentation without providing context...

I'm totally with pinktulips on the pain thing. Pain is not just an irritation it's a signal and it's there for you to read not to cover up. Remember pain killers are not actually killing pain but concealing it from you so you can't properly get to the bottom of it.

Actually, I was just at a lecture about pain the other day and pain does not always have a function. The body and nervous system are remarkable but they have evolved by a system of trial and error, some of the errors are still there. Hence pain killers work getting rid of a pain that it telling us nothing . Often times pain is a meaningless by-product of what is happening. There is nothing 'useful' about the pain of childbirth.

I have a good idea. To ensure proper bonding with all birth experiences simply stop offering pain relief, including for cs.

this will result in happy mothers and babies,who bond and bf well, and will empower women.

sounds fab.

I do agree with you Spidermama, I had both of mine at home and have suffered with anxiety and self esteem issues for a long time. Giving birth without intervention and excellent support empowered me and gave my self esteem a massive boost. JMHO of course and my own experiences I appreciate that if there are other physical problems in labour then intervention is the way to go but it would be interesting to see if more women would choose the more 'natural' route if they had better support and access to alternative therapies i.e. hypnosis, massage, aromatherapy etc.

That's fine if you want to endure it Spidy. But would you force that on others?

If he wants to reduce the number of epidurals they should first increase the number of midwives so you see the same person throughout your pregnancy and build some trust / confidence in them and also so you're not just left on your own for stretches of time whilst in labour (maybe provide doulas to everyone free of charge if they can't do this), improve facilities (so you can easily have a water birth if you want it for example), increase the number of birthing centres and stop discouraging home-births. They should also give consultants a good dose of common sense starting from ante-natal care so they don't knock your confidence from early on. Mine were always quite keen to tell me what I couldn't do - not exactly empowering.
Imo epidurals are a natural consequence of maternity services as they are.
Don't know where to start with the idea that a huge amount of pain prepares you for motherhood. Had nightmares after my first one for about five months after. Not sure how it made me a better mum. Knob end kind of sums up my sentiment too.

What a wanker!! Also girls, they took quotes from the "other site" (Netmums) probably because they were too scared to use ours!!

This guy has totally shot himself in the foot and will probably never be taken seriously again.

There was some good points made, i do think there should be more emphasis on natural pain relief, but the reason there isn't is probably because it would take up too much of the midwives time - which when she is running around like a headless chicken anyway is not possible.

I absolutely think that medical intervention should be kept at a minimum and i think most mums would agree. However there is pain releif out there, why wouldn't you take it - to prove how hardcore you are??

I didn't have much in the way of pain relief, luckily i managed on gas and air although i was begging for pethedine in the end, it was too late. My birth was fairly traumatic for me as DD heart rate slowed and they threatened forceps - nothing like the threat of the giant spoons to make a woman push! I certainly don't think this did anything to improve the bond with DD or prepare me for motherhood. What a load of bollocks. I can imagine that the trauma of unbearable pain would potentialy damage the bond rather than strengthen it. Also, there was a point in my labour where the pain was so intense i couldn't do anything, it overtook me. I shouldn't have been stubborn, i should have had the drugs. Its not that i didn't want them, i wanted to manage for as long as i could without them and left it too late.

I read somewhere that NICE guidelines say women should not be declined an epidural..........is this still the case do you think?

I didn't fancy the pain of childbirth, so I asked for and got what I needed (not much in the event, just a sniff of gas but enough to make a difference). Result: I went onto have another baby after that, and was rather tempted by the idea of a third.

My grandmother had no such choice when she gave birth at home in her small village. She could never face having another baby. She didn't feel empowered at all by having the full experience: just terrified. I bet there were loads of women like her.

Is this guy a Catholic by any chance??

yomella - that's exactly what his presentation says.

He also lists the benefits of epidurals for prolonged labour etc. The presentation doesn't look at denying anyone.

I found the 'pain' of labour useful in the sense that if the pain increased I could change position/move around in order to become more comfortable. Likewise when pushing I put myself in the most comfortable/effective position for birth for me.

DS was 9lbs 13.5oz and I only had a couple of stitches so hopefully it worked (DD was 8lbs)

The Bible states that women will give birth to children in pain to pay the price for Eve giving in to temptation in the Garden of Eden

we really are entering a new dark ages.

THink everyone who is reading this thread should read his presentation, give the poor guy a chance!