Inspired by the current giving birth thread, is there any reasonable reason that giving birth has to be painful to women?
If not - or if the reasons are fairly poor - then why is it still the norm (except if at the woman’s request)?
I don’t know much about it really, given it’s something I’ve only experienced from the baby’s point of view, but from a simple way of looking at things it seems to be inflicting needless pain on the mother. And it’s definitely the kind of thing where I could see experts in the field, especially since they are mostly and were wholly male just not being focussed on it, being far more interested in reducing child mortality etc. (it is defintely my general position that the medical profession is far too blaze about pain in general).
But equally, it’s also the kind of thing where I could see it having been looked at by feminist radicals and so on whereby the pain is better looked after than almost anything. So if that were the case, perhaps all the pain is necessary. What’s the, ahem, straight dope?
Remember that for most of evolution, our ancestors were not human, and were in fact unlike us in two very different ways. On the one hand, we’re walking upright using bones that were mostly evolved for quadrupedal walking, and that means that our pelvis has had to do some really weird things to adapt. And on the other hand, our brains are huge compared to the size of the rest of our body, so now we have to fit this freakishly large head through a freakishly weird-shaped pelvis. So, yeah, childbirth is really hard for humans, and the pain is one symptom of that.
Unless you were asking about whether it’s medically necessary? The answer to that is obviously no, given that effective painkilling techniques are now available, and a great many women opt for them.
I’m neither a doctor nor female, but the main modern* reason I’ve heard for avoiding anesthetic is that it affects the baby as well and has longer term effects on them.
*The old reason being that the pain of childbirth is part of the punishment of all women for the Sin of Eve, so it’s wrong to do anything that reduces the suffering of women.
Then your question seems to be based on a misapprehension. As Chronos indicated, in developed countries, at least, pain killing techniques are available and very widely used. Epidural analgesia is particularly effective and (I think) quite common. Of course, like all forms of medical treatment, all such treatments have their downsides and risks, but they are mostly fairly minor.
Nevertheless, I believe a fair proportion of women refuse such treatments. Sometimes (in the USA, particularly) it might be for financial reasons; otherwise, well, maybe there are women here who can tell us.
When my ex was pregnant, I remember during all the various classes (at the hospital), doctor visits and even when she was in labor, any time the topic of an epidural came up, the risks were not considered minor. I mean, they weren’t considered a ‘big deal’, but it was assumed you would have things like a longer labor or have a more difficult time pushing. They also mentioned something about a headache that could take some time (days? weeks?) to clear up.
Not that they were trying to dissuade anyone from using it, but they made it VERY clear that not using it tended to move things along a bit quicker.
FTR, it’s entirely possibly I’m misremembering things, it was 7 years ago.
Also, there’s the fact that a lot of people might not want a needle stuck in their spine.
A Caesarean delivery (even these days with the bikini-cut incision and quick recovery times) is major abdominal surgery and requires a lot more recovery and postpartum care than a vaginal birth does. It also requires major anesthesia that some people may react to, requires pain medication to be taken postpartum when the mother may be trying to breastfeed, and leaves you with an abdominal scar. Having done it both ways, there are certainly pros and cons to both, but overall I found my C-section delivery to be much more difficult to recover from.
When my wife gave birth to each of our three children, she declined the epidural because of her intense dislike/fear of needles. The nurse insisted on an I.V. line and after giving birth the first thing she asked was when they could remove it. She also does without anesthesia for nearly all dental work for the same reason.
Yep, that’s about it. I am not at all afraid of being in rather considerable pain, but I have seen three spinal taps given, and their aftermath, and I am terrified of getting an epidural or having my spinal fluid accessed in any way. I got a dose of Fentanyl in the IV in the back of my hand, and that took the edge off and let me sleep a bit, which was enough.
Abdominal surgery is no walk in the park. The muscles of your abdomen and uterus are strong and thick, and it takes a pretty large opening to get a baby out. Healing a giant wound that goes straight into your internal organs comes with risk of infection and hernia. There is always risk from blood loss and anesthesia. And caesareans are associated with worse post-partum mental health outcomes. Finally, after having on, your future pregnancies will be at greater risk (and the more you have, the more and more the risk builds) for all kinds of nasty complications that endanger both the child and the mother.
Otherwise non-complicated pregnancies that are delivered by C-Section have MUCH higher risk of infant mortality. There are some specific things that happen during the birth process that can become problems if they do not happen. There are also things that we don’t fully understand yet. Obesity seem to be tied to C-sections, and there may be some protective power to the bacteria that washes over children in natural childbirth.
There’s also the factor that all women are different, and all birth-giving experiences are different in pain intensity and length. So sometimes it just kinda happens and you go with the flow.
In my case, although there was NO WAY short of a real medical emergency I was going to have someone rip my belly open to extract a child, I was totally on for an epidural. My motto was “yes, yes, drugs, give me drugs”. However, as it happens, while the nurses at the hospital were looking at my signs going “plenty of time, plenty of time”, my body had other ideas, and by the time the obstetrician was due to come in and start the process, I’d already had a baby for an hour.
Next time, having already gone through it once without anything much in the way of pain relief, I was pretty relaxed about the whole process. I was just about to think about asking them to set up the gas when … ooh look, there’s a head. Third time I had a baby within about 10 minutes of walking into the hospital.
And you know - it was kinda sucky, but it wasn’t that bad. At least, not for me - I know some people have some horrific experiences. But generally, those are the ones that do actually get pain relief (and cesarians)
Count me in as another woman who weighed the alternatives of “being in pain” and “having a GIANT NEEDLE stuck INTO MY SPINE” and thought, you know? I’ll try the pain. The fact that having an epidural means you’re stuck in bed, and uncertainty about how the anesthesia might affect me or the baby, sealed the deal for me.
As it happens, I was also one of the lucky ones - the pain wasn’t really all that bad (I’ve had worse pain from headaches, and those didn’t result in a baby), and both births were over with in about five hours each.
Oh, and one more thing which may not be obvious - the thing about epidurals is you have to time them pretty well, otherwise it wears off and you have to do it AGAIN. So that combined with the fact that a ‘typical’ labour may be anything from half an hour to two days (and epidurals have a tendency to slow down labour) - you can see it’s a lot trickier than Insert Painkiller A into Slot B. Other pain relief options have other issues - gas helps a lot of women, but some people it just makes them feel sick.
This is a subject which I daresay most women who have given birth have looked into pretty thoroughly, one way or another.
Because it’s major surgery, and most people have these silly qualms about getting cut for no reason. That’s without even getting into its possible specific consequences.
In my experience, having had a baby a year ago, doctors in general push pain relief pretty hard. The value that a “natural childbirth” is to be preferred is not one I associate with the medical community.
A lot of this goes back to the time when women were put under general anesthesia for delivery, restricted from seeing the baby for all but a handful of hours for the entire week they were required to stay in the hospital, not consulted or even informed about medical issues, etc. This wasn’t a thousand years ago: my mom had one set of babies in 1965-1969, and the second set starting in 1976, and she says the difference was amazing: there was a huge sea change in how doctors and patients both looked at their roles.
Distaste for pain relief has to be looked at in this context. I personally think the pendulum may have swung too far the other way: I’ve read things by people about rejecting vitamin K shots, the antibiotics in the eyes, and, of course, the ani-vaxers, all of which I think is part of a general low-level distrust of doctors that is the result of those policies. And when a (childless) co-worker asked me if I’d had a “natural” childbirth in a tone that suggested she felt Ishould have, I wanted to smack her. But I do understand the root of the distrust, and the desire to experience childbirth fully.
In general, for any medical procedure, given the choice between using a pre-existing natural body opening to access the innards, and surgically cutting in to access those innards more directly, using the natural body opening is almost always better in multiple ways, and is thus almost always preferred by doctors and patients.
When I gave birth (yes, I was a screamer from the other thread), my baby came so quickly, there was no time for pain meds. I was in no way going to have an epidural anyway, due to the fact that I don’t want anything in my spine unless it is to save my life. I generally view things from the angle that if it isn’t medically necessary, don’t do it. Least Effective Dose - of everything in every case (I get to decide “medically necessary” unless I’m unconscious - and yes, vaccines are medically necessary).
Having had the experience of natural childbirth, I wouldn’t do it any other way even with the excruciating pain. After awhile it just washes over you and you have to just go with it. I was fully awake for the entire process and it was the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
That said, my entire hard labor and delivery was two hours - I can definitely see women who have long labor/delivery wanting pain relief - if for no other reason than to be able to rest for a bit.
:eek: You don’t understand why women do not like the idea of having their bellies cut open with a knife?:eek: