Adding my .02 to this discussion on pain and childbirth. I had my 5
children before I became a nurse and then did labor and delivery for 9
years. I have a bone to pick with the childbirth educators who teach women
this very idea, that labor does not cause real pain. IMHO, it most
definitely does cause pain for 99% of women (% is just my guess from
experience), some more so than others. Women whose labors progress quickly
tend to have more intense pain. I tell them, that's the tradeoff: it hurts
more but is over quicker. I took childbirth classes before I knew any
differences in types, and found through LLL after my first two were born
that I had been taught Lamaze the first time, and Bradley in my refresher
for #2. Lamaze didn't work for me. Of course, it was my first, and they're
usually longer, so that's a factor, but I just couldn't do self-hypnosis,
which is what I consider this idea that a focal point will take your mind
off the pain. Sure didn't work for me. What did work was finding out what
was happening with my body and working with it. Visualizing and
concentrating and "letting-go" rather than trying to "tune out" was much
more effective and I have used it successfully myself and with patients. I
think knowing what to expect, and that includes pain, is more helpful than
distraction, as well as having someone with you who knows what you want out
of your experience and will help you when you feel you've lost control,
which most women do at some point in labor. I don't think the need for a
good support person (sometimes in addition to your husband/father of the
baby) can be overstated.
I agree with Judy that the pains women endure with menstruation help
prepare for labor. I also think the cramps after delivery were worse than
contractions, especially with #s 2,4,5 (#3, my son, was stillborn. Cramps
were bad but, since I wasn't breastfeeding, they weren't as bad.). And, of
course, I had to do sore nipples with all of mine, even when tandem nursing
the last 2! If I'd only known then what I know now! Just as we, who help
women breastfeed, know it to be important that women know what is normal and
what to expect when they start out breastfeeding as a way of
short-circuiting problems, I think it's just as important that we don't
sugar-coat or philosophize the fact that labor hurts. I cringe when I hear
women regaling their pregnant friends, relatives, etc. with their horror
labor stories. Nonetheless, women deserve to know what we know after we
have given birth. It hurts. But here's what you can do to cope with it.
Perhaps being more realistic in their expectations of labor will lead to
more satisfactory deliveries and fewer problems nursing in the postpartum
period.
Marsha Glass RN, BSN, IBCLC
Mothers have as powerful an influence over the welfare of future generations
as all other earthly causes combined.
John S. C. Abbot
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