Alright, I can't resist. I'm a former card-carrying phys. ed. (gym) teacher
with a minor in athletic training, and have coached several sports for 20+
years and taught childbirth for 19 years. Pain is NOT the same as effort and
exertion!  Muscular effort can be intense - ever watch (and listen to) any
Olympic sport where smiling isn't part of the score? However, we pull
athletes off the field and make them stop the activity when they experience
true pain - because pain indicates injury.

IMHO, Birth is mostly about effort and sex. The fear of "pain" comes partly
from the discomfort some feel in watching women's sexual power and effort in
birth, which men simply can't do. When there is real pain from tissue injury,
malposition, etc. then physical and chemical remedies are appropriate to
minimize further damage to mother and baby. However, interpreting all
muscular effort and tissue changes as pain is simply not accurate
physiologically, even if it's "popular" with those who wish to disempower
women. (am I the only one with these radical ideas?)

Please don't perpetuate the myth that all intense sensations are pain, nor
that pain is normal. In my years as a childbirth educator, my approach to
helping women in labor has been very popular and effective with my couples,
and the medication use rate in my students far lower than with other
instructors. Birth is a normal physical and sexual event and should be
treated as such, not a medical emergency.

Linda Smith, BSE, FACCE, IBCLC, remembering the "huff and puff" days of early
childbirth education strategies and grieving truly independent education that
told the real truth about medications in labor. Dayton OH - former home of
DCEA, an early member group of ICEA.