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.

I Personally chose a epidural first time round and went for a totally natural birth the 2nd time. If I was to have another baby I would choose the natural birth every time. However I don't think anyone has the right to dictate whether a labouring women should have pain relief, especially a man who has never and will never experience childbirth.

I chose not to have any pain relief ,except gas and air, but I would be much more worried about the affects of an epidural than the pain of childbirth. Everyone should be free to make their own decisions. I don't think anyone is superior. I think that I am just lucky that I have childbearing hips-if I had problems, I would have probably made very different decisions.

Not time to read this all now, but I the doctor turns out to be a christian. The two things usually go together.

WhatFreshHell - having the sort of birth, and the sort of support, that means less pharmacological pain relief is needed is better, of course it is.

It means the mother recovers more quickly; she is able to respond to her baby more easily; she can move her body from the waist down, for instance, straight away, without assistance; she does not need to be catherised to pass urine, and she has avoided forceps or other assisted delivery, which increase with the use of epidural.

All these are good things. I don't argue them on 'spiritual' grounds, but I do argue them.

This does not apply to each and every individual woman. If you are in unbearable pain and you need an epidural, and you don't get one, this in itself might have very negative effects, and these effects may well include a long time to recover and emotional and mental effects which persist - obviously a bad thing.

But speaking generally, fewer epidurals would be a good thing for mothers and babies.

This is not to judge births, or women, or a reason for people to feel they are a failure or their birth was 'worse' than someone else's because they had an epidural.

Is this man for real?? Personally, I think that a pre-requisite for this job should be that you have given birth! Ditto those who teach labour management classes. When I was pregnant for my first son many eons ago (he'll be 30 next month), we were prepared for labour by a young woman who had never given birth. She told us it could all be easily managed by proper breathing. Liar!

I think the best possible start to nuturing a new baby is for each mother to have had her individual labour needs met in the way SHE desires. As for pain being necessary to prepare for bonding, complete CRAP! I know I could have kissed the anaesthetist who gave me my epideral! The utter bliss!

Tiktok I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm wholly in favour of women being empowered to cope with as few medical interventions, especially risky ones, as possible. And i entirely agree that this position does not judge women who do have interventions.

I'm simply saying that all this stuff about medical pain relief having anything to do with how the mother bonds, or whether the experience is a spiritual rite of passage etc etc is completely irrelevant and serves no useful purpose in the argument.

'The pain is a positive pain in that whilst it can be extremely unpleasant, it is NOT a signal that something is wrong like a broken leg. '

I get pain after exercising heavily. Nothing's wrong. Still get pain.

Get pain during my period. Nothing's wrong. Still get pain.

Extremely unpleasant?

Maybe for you.

For me, my drug-free birth (with my 2nd) still gives me nightmares 3.5 years on. Nightmares of being disembowelled. It excarbated my PND. I'd look at my child and think of pain.

So when I had my third, I went into saying, 'I want an epidural.'

I didn't ever want to feel that pain again.

Trying to qualify pain, any sort of pain, is like trying to qualify humanity as a whole.

That's why it's always wrong.

'The pain is a positive pain in that whilst it can be extremely unpleasant, it is NOT a signal that something is wrong like a broken leg. '

I get pain after exercising heavily. Nothing's wrong. Still get pain.

Get pain during my period. Nothing's wrong. Still get pain.

Extremely unpleasant?

Maybe for you.

For me, my drug-free birth (with my 2nd) still gives me nightmares 3.5 years on. Nightmares of being disembowelled. It excarbated my PND. I'd look at my child and think of pain.

So when I had my third, I went into saying, 'I want an epidural.'

I didn't ever want to feel that pain again.

Trying to qualify pain, any sort of pain, is like trying to qualify humanity as a whole.

That's why it's always wrong.

'The pain is a positive pain in that whilst it can be extremely unpleasant, it is NOT a signal that something is wrong like a broken leg. '

I get pain after exercising heavily. Nothing's wrong. Still get pain.

Get pain during my period. Nothing's wrong. Still get pain.

Extremely unpleasant?

Maybe for you.

For me, my drug-free birth (with my 2nd) still gives me nightmares 3.5 years on. Nightmares of being disembowelled. It excarbated my PND. I'd look at my child and think of pain.

So when I had my third, I went into saying, 'I want an epidural.'

I didn't ever want to feel that pain again.

Trying to qualify pain, any sort of pain, is like trying to qualify humanity as a whole.

That's why it's always wrong.

sorry for multiple posts.

I'm always, consistently, taken aback by the line that women are more 'brainwashed' now into thinking that chilbirth hurts than we were in the Good Old Natural Days.

Every single bloody culture perpetrated by women says that childbirth hurts like hell. In fact it's only the post-Kitzinger line of 'pain with a purpose' that has contradicted that.

I've chosen two completely different types of birthing options. I am hugely relieved that this choice was on offer.

I had a drug-free labour. There was f* all spiritual about it. It was agonising pain and if I am honest I was a teeny bit resentful of DS for the first few days for having caused it (all fine now but there was no big rush of love/euphoria)

Can I suggest a drug-free circumcision with a blunt instrument for this man - as a rite of passage?

I would be happy to compare gential mutilation afterwards - mine would be my labial tears... some of which didn't knit together even after stitching so I have a lovely little extra flap and a hole in one labia. All done without any anaesetic with a blunt baby's head.

OK, WhatFreshHell

To others (some others): I am tired of the way this is being discussed. To suggest that only someone who has given birth can enter this debate is ridiculous. Sure, having given birth gives a dimension and an 'embodied experience' that is very valuable but we don't demand shared experience in any other area of life (or we shouldn't). Birth giving 'belongs' to individual women and the rest of the world, too. Policy decisions about resources, training, and research can be informed by knowledgable people who have not given birth as well people whose only knowledge is what happened to them.

I am also sick of posters who devise nasty tortures in a 'see if he would like it!' vein.

It's juvenile. It's not clever and it's not funny.

Please can we grow up?

No one is saying women should not be given epidurals if they want them and/or if they are in serious pain they don't want to deal with in other ways.

'To suggest that only someone who has given birth can enter this debate is ridiculous.'

Why? When he is trying to qualify a pain he will never feel AND influence policy on how that pain should be dealt with for womanhood as a whole?

He put himself out there by pronouncing such a public opinion upon it all as a healthcare professional.

So we're not allowed to comment on the fact that he pronounced a public declaration on the quality of pain a person, who happens to be a woman, feels because it's somehow unfair, juvenile or not very clever to point out that his argument is somewhat compromised by the fact that he is discussing a pain he will never experience?

And, no, I have no been one to suggest other means by which he might experience pain.

And yes, I have read his entire presentation.

And I take exception with many points of it, because not only is he making conclusions about pain but also is he extrapolating how that pain affects a parent's further relationship with her child.

Colour me immature.

May be an urban myth, but have heard that in some remote tribe, when a woman is in labor, the father, with each contraction, has a piece of string that is tied around his private parts, and gets pulled.

But I'm juvenile

Expat, you haven't experienced my pain, and I haven't experienced yours. I can't tell you your pain was not 'bad enough' for an epidural, and you can't tell me I should have had one. We all have an individual experience, and some people have none at all.

It's not about that.

It's about looking at the research which listens to thousands of women, and hearing that the experiences which give the best levels of satisfaction are ones where the women have had consistent, caring midwifery support and less intervention, with the woman at the centre of her own care. Epidurals tend to enable less midwifery care (women are left alone more) and they increase the risks of intervention. (This is not true in all individual cases, of course.) Neither of these are good things, and I am happy that a man, and women who have not given birth, can recognise this.

expat: "So we're not allowed to comment on the fact that he pronounced a public declaration on the quality of pain a person, who happens to be a woman, feels because it's somehow unfair, juvenile or not very clever to point out that his argument is somewhat compromised by the fact that he is discussing a pain he will never experience?"

I didn't say that. I said the 'torture him!' arguments were juvenile.

And yes, of course you can comment - comment away, say what you like, I am not in favour of censorship!

The trouble is, I think Walsh IS saying that "women should not be given epidurals if they want them".

He certainly doesn't think that we should want them. He blames us for succumbing to a celebrity image of birth, which is astonishingly patronizing. There is no sign in what he says that he supports women's rights to make their own informed choices. His attitude is that he knows best, regardless of what birthing mothers say that they want.

These attitudes confront a lot of women who go into hospital unsure if they'll get pain relief when they need. We've heard from lots of women who were fobbed off or whose epidurals were deliberately delayed by midwives who felt they knew best. It creates a big trust gap between women and their birth attendants.

Of course I am prepared to accept that midwives have expert knowledge. I had a very long labour with ds back-to-back with me. When I wanted an epidural (after 12 hours of serious contractions at home, plus 8 hours of exhausted howling in hospital), the midwives kindly and honestly explained that I'd reduce my caesarean risk by doing another few cm before having one. And they supported me to do that, calling the anaesthetist immediately once I couldn't cope any longer. But I know far too many mothers who feel they were frankly lied to.

"I didn't ever want to feel that pain again.

Trying to qualify pain, any sort of pain, is like trying to qualify humanity as a whole.

That's why it's always wrong."

And absolutely nobody is saying that you should go through that pain, Expat.

But there are different kinds of pain and for different types of purpose. The pain of injury and the pain of labour progressing is for a different physiological purpose therefore trying to compare the two like trying to compare peas and bricks. Of course, giving birth can bring injuries too but that is again a separate issue.

I really think the point has been missed on this thread.

ItsGrimUpNorth - but Walsh IS saying that Expat and the rest of us should go through that pain. He's saying exactly that. He criticizes us for 'not fancying the pain'. He thinks we should consider it beneficial.

'It's not about that.'

Yes, it is. It is because this is a person, this Dr. Walsh, declaring generalisations about the pain felt in childbirth and furthermore, making generalisations about both this and the ramifications of it on their future relationship with their children.

Studies have shown, for example, that people with red hair feel more pain, in everything, than other people. Shall we deny them more pain relief than others, be it in childbirth or with a broken leg, then?

'The pain of injury and the pain of labour progressing is for a different physiological purpose therefore trying to compare the two like trying to compare peas and bricks. Of course, giving birth can bring injuries too but that is again a separate issue.'

I have had both types.

Lucikly, I have a European surgeon when it came to my non-childbirth related pain relief. An educated man who'd seen the studies that post-surgical patients who don't have their pain relieved adequately to the level they perceive as adequate don't heal as well. He wasn't interested in wasting his skills if his patients weren't adequately relieved.

Why is it somehow different in childbirth?

Fortunately, all the medics, both male and female, I encountered during my two experiences with childbirth with epidural didn't agree with this man.

You did say this, ticktok.

You said: 'To suggest that only someone who has given birth can enter this debate is ridiculous. Sure, having given birth gives a dimension and an 'embodied experience' that is very valuable but we don't demand shared experience in any other area of life (or we shouldn't). Birth giving 'belongs' to individual women and the rest of the world, too. Policy decisions about resources, training, and research can be informed by knowledgable people who have not given birth as well people whose only knowledge is what happened to them. '

THEN you went on about people who made comments about torturing his genetalia and anus and rectum.

His presentation is about qualifying a pain he will never feel.

His presentation is with the intent to influence policy.

Therefore, I feel it is fair to say he is talking out his proverbial arse by making pronouncements as he has.

I said it earlier on this thread: he is most typically putting the cart before the horse.

And as such he is fair game for others finding holes in his credibility.

Why is it that this midwife says pain helps mothers bond with child when he fails to mention the dads bond with their kids without the pain of childbirth. He should explain why women need to feel the worst pain in the world to care for their kids well when men just manage without having any pain at all. This is the Big hole in his arguement imho.