# Why is human birthing labor so painful? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 23, 2003, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623 "2003-04-23T16:44:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/21 "2003-04-23T20:20:00Z")
**Tuco** , standing can help. For what it’s worth, my wife spent much of my wife’s delivery sitting on my legs (which was easier than standing with her legs apart.) Beyond that, I’m no expert so allow me to bow out of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/22 "2003-04-23T20:22:12Z")
“…my wife spent much of my **first son’s** delivery…” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![CastleAnthrax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/23 "2003-04-23T20:28:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tuco \* > \*\*[hijack] > Just curious, wouldn’t it be easier if the woman stood up (or leant against something whilst standing) during birth, letting gravity give a helping hand? Or have I missed someting? > [/hijack] \*\* Yes, absolutely. Or whatever position helps her. I spent much of my last labor on a big bouncy ball next to the bed. Kept my hips flexed. I had back labor with the first one. For the ininitiated, this is when the kid faces front rather than back and the back of his bony skull grinds against the base of your spine. The only thing that helped was doing a slow twisting dance move that looks like your hips describe an infinity symbol on the floor. As I found out later, what it actually did was both massage my inner muscles to relax them and by twisting the birth canal, allow the kid to naturally slip into a better position for everyone involved. The only position that is BAD for labor is flat on your back. It makes the kid rest against some very important blood vessels, constricting the flow to both of you. It also makes you push uphill to get the kid out. It’s not much of an uphill, but as they say, every little bit helps. HennaDancer ---
**Author:** ![hedra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@hedra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hedra)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/24 "2003-04-23T21:01:05Z")
This has been discussed in depth before. Rather than repeat my long research update on childbirth and pain there, let me just link it. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=94681](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=94681) Please refer to point 4 in my first post in that thread. By the way, the hypnotherapy I did with child two worked great. No pain, and that’s WITH pitocin, thanks. Not that the first was all that bad, even without hypnosis. ---
**Author:** ![hedra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@hedra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hedra)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/25 "2003-04-23T21:02:58Z")
Oh, and an upright labor position also decreases the chances of poor fetal heart tone (that is, if you labor upright, babies are less distressed). On the flip side, there’s more risk of a serious bleed afterwards, too. But that’s why we make extra blood for pregnancy, so we can lose a bunch safely. ---
**Author:** ![sonicsink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@sonicsink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sonicsink)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/26 "2003-04-23T22:55:46Z")
So what you are all saying is that is isn’t nescessarily the contractions that hurt,but it is the babys big head streching through the canal that hurts so much…? They why do some women have such painful periods? and if its the muscle thing again,that it hasn’t been used so after awhile it really hurts etc…well you’d think after years of “training” with periods,the damn thing would be ready to go ---
**Author:** ![CastleAnthrax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/27 "2003-04-23T23:33:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sonicsink \* > \*\*So what you are all saying is that is isn’t nescessarily the contractions that hurt,but it is the babys big head streching through the canal that hurts so much…? \*\* I think that’s what some people are saying, but that’s not the main reason. Labor starts when the cervix decides to open from 0-3cm to 10 or so cm in diameter. This happens at the same time as uterine contractions start. The baby doesn’t start to come out of the uterus until fairly far along. Once I’m to that point, all the intense pain is gone. There is a burning sensation as the head comes out, but I hardly noticed it with the first kid and not at all with the second. This is the skin stretching right around the rim on the vagina. There are relatively few nerve endings inside the vagina to be bothered by a baby’s head, and even so, it’s all nooks and crannies in there- folds and corrugations. Kinda like one of those blow-up punching baloons you can get in the supermarket. Slender when unexpanded but huge when it’s got air in it, or in this case, a baby. Once you get that pesky cervix out of the way, assuming you have no pelvic abnormalities, there should be no further blockage, and so long as the perineum is massaged, oiled, and supported, no tearing. This is IN MOST CASES. Of course not all people will work like this. HennaDancer ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/28 "2003-04-24T00:31:57Z")
I would think the reason in the past why women were so frightened of giving birth was the mortality rate, not shame. ---
**Author:** ![CastleAnthrax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/29 "2003-04-24T00:36:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*I would think the reason in the past why women were so frightened of giving birth was the mortality rate, not shame. \*\* Well, yes. The fact that it wasn’t talked about much so the woman was totally unprepared for what might occur is where the shame came in. If you tell someone that you are going to go through an incredibly painful experience and might die- and NOTHING ELSE- it’s bound to cause problems. HennaDancer ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/30 "2003-04-24T00:40:50Z")
True-very true. However, weren’t alot of doctors very ignorant? I’ve read an account of Princess Charlotte of Wales’s labor, which killed her (She was the daughter of then Prince Regent, later George IV). It was hideous. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Goo_Fee)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/31 "2003-04-24T00:42:07Z")
“Why is human birthing labor so painful?” Its jus god’s way a sayin, “Y’all makin too many chilluns. Stop it.” except that when it comes to god… ---
**Author:** ![mipiace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mipiace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipiace)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/32 "2003-04-24T00:44:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sonicsink \* > \*\*So what you are all saying is that is isn’t nescessarily the contractions that hurt,but it is the babys big head streching through the canal that hurts so much…? They why do some women have such painful periods? and if its the muscle thing again,that it hasn’t been used so after awhile it really hurts etc…well you’d think after years of “training” with periods,the damn thing would be ready to go \*\* You know I’m guessing you are a man/ Try and squeeze a tennis ball through your penis and see if taking a leak 1,000 or so times prior to that was great practice. I’m not tryng to flame you but really you need to get over any association between menstrual cramping and labor they are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Let me use small words period pain = I’m a little cranky but keep doing what I normally do. Labor pain = stop all body functions and pant like a dog. Having a headache isn’t practice for a lobotomy. Falling on your knees as a child won’t prepare you for a compound fracture at age 25. Sitting on a tack is not the same as being impaled on a fence post. Do you get it at all? ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/33 "2003-04-24T00:48:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stonebow \* > \*\*like everyone has said, the big brain thing does not help, and i’d also imagine that medical science being able to help deliveries where otherwise the mom and baby would die (selecting them out of the population) keeps people breeding who are not particulary well adapted for it. of course, that’s my own WAG. \*\* I think there’s an important point here. 100 years ago, I, nor my sister would have survived birth. My mother nearly died when I was born, even with our advanced methods and medical expertise. (My sister’s birth was an automatic C-section and was a lot easier.) My sister recently had a baby, and had extreme difficulties. I doubt she would have made it if we lived in the Victorian era. I have no children, but it’s highly likely I would also have problems. So, evolutionarily speaking, my mother, my sister and I are all genetically unfit. We were “selected-for” artificially. Our offspring will most likely carry on whatever defective gene which has made the female pelvis in our family so stubbornly inmovable. In a tiny way, we have weakened the species as a whole by surviving and breeding. I have often wondered what the remote future of our species will be like. Considering all of the people, not only birthing mothers, who would have died if not for our advanced medicine and who are now breeding the next generations, will our decendants be weaker? Because the “weak” are not thinned out by illnesses which used to be fatal, will those illnesses become more prevalent? Will our species become more sickly as a result? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/34 "2003-04-24T00:58:03Z")
I ran into an article a few years ago, I believe in _Scientific American_, that pointed out that not only was the pelvis reshaped to allow for upright walking and the increasing head size, but also that the baby comes out upside down–that is, back up–while all the other primates give birth with the kid coming out face up. This allows for a much easier labor on the part of the mother, as she can just reach down there and pull the kid out and up by herself in a natural manner without having to worry about turning the kid around first to not break the back. It also allows for a birthing without help, compared to the use of midwives throughout human history. ---
**Author:** ![dreamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@dreamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dreamer)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/35 "2003-04-24T02:00:44Z")
I’m scared to death of not only being pregnant but also giving birth. I attribute that to spending alot of time with a friend who was pregnant and witnessing her giving birth all the while screaming “God help me I’m gonna die!”. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/36 "2003-04-24T02:27:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dreamer \* > \*\*I’m scared to death of not only being pregnant but also giving birth. I attribute that to spending alot of time with a friend who was pregnant and witnessing her giving birth all the while screaming “God help me I’m gonna die!”. \*\* A friend reported to me the astonishing tale of her sister’s experience with childbirth. She said that the sister was calm as could be throughout the whole labor, waving away offers of drugs, saying, “This isn’t bad at all. I expected it to hurt.” She laughed and joked with the doctors during the actual delivery. The baby was born with remarkable ease. She is not a “big” girl, either. I guess some people just have an easier time than others. ---
**Author:** ![sonicsink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@sonicsink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sonicsink)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/37 "2003-04-24T02:33:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mipiace \* > \*\*You know I’m guessing you are a man/ Try and squeeze a tennis ball through your penis and see if taking a leak 1,000 or so times prior to that was great practice. I’m not tryng to flame you but really you need to get over any association between menstrual cramping and labor they are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. > > Let me use small words > period pain = I’m a little cranky but keep doing what I normally do. > Labor pain = stop all body functions and pant like a dog. > > Having a headache isn’t practice for a lobotomy. Falling on your knees as a child won’t prepare you for a compound fracture at age 25. Sitting on a tack is not the same as being impaled on a fence post. Do you get it at all? \*\* First of all I am not a man …I am a woman who has gone through some pretty excruciating period cramps and I just so happen to be 10 weeks pregnant thank you very much…:mad: My reason for asking all these questions is to kind of wrap my head around the concept of what I am going to experience in a few months. From what I have always heard,period cramps were supposed to be your uterus’ way of preparing for labour,hence the comment in my previous posts. I don’t really see this great difference between cramps and labour except that with cramps you are squezing out some fluid while with labour you are sqeezing out something much greater…all I wanted to know was why those contractions are oh so much more painful. Pardon me for trying to be a little more educated. ---
**Author:** ![mipiace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@mipiace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipiace)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/38 "2003-04-24T03:18:49Z")
I’m sorry. I would have been kinder had I known. I had this vision of some guy who had never and would never telling his wife to put up and shut up… really I apologize…well anyway. Don’t be scared. It will all happen very naturally. Stay in shape and the GREAT news is, your period symptoms will most likely change after a childbirth. With each child my period changed completely. Yeah I guess it’s roughly the same movement (same area of the body) but really not the same at all. Your entire body will feel different by that time. At about 7 months you’ll feel heavy and you might start to have pre-labor, then you’ll get a better idea. Honestly though I am not kidding you, I promise it isn’t the same, put that completely out of your mind. Get a good coach, really pay attention to the breathing it helps a lot. Relax and enjoy your pregnancy. Those were some of the happiest times in my life and hey, no painful periods for…hmm at least 10 or 11 months! ---
**Author:** ![AwSnappity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/39 "2003-04-24T05:44:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NoGoodNamesLeft \* > \*\*A complete an utter WAG (with no cite whatsoever), but could it be evolution? I’d guess our bodies were probably better at berthing when we were close to the primate side. \*\* But don’t you think that women who had more painful labors would have fewer children? It would make sense that if it hurt a whole lot, she wouldn’t want to do it as often. If women are genetically predisposed to having painful labors, they won’t want to have as many children, meaning the trait won’t get passed on quite so much. If that were true, that would mean fewer women would have painful labors than before. ---
**Author:** ![hedra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@hedra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hedra)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2003, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623/40 "2003-04-24T12:25:16Z")
**AwSnappity** , normally, women didn’t have much choice on the pregnancy front if they wanted sex at all. Opting not to have another baby was pretty unlikely, no matter what. I’m guessing you didn’t go read my link, so I’ll repost it here… > [@](#): > > 1. Evolution has handled even bad births very well in some sneaky ways – ever hear of ‘birth amnesia’ (“you won’t remember the pain”)? How about mothers saying ‘I’d do it all again, it was worth it’ – brain chemicals evolve, too. Love them endorphins, and oh, how about oxytocin and estradiol, both of which also contribute to the ‘scr\*w the pain, I’d do it again for a baby’ response. > > 2. “Pure” evolution is confounded by medicine, technology, society, and culture. 11 lb babies used to die or kill their mothers or both. Now we c-section. Women can have multiple babies (regardless of difficult births) by choice, not because it is easy, but because they survived, and want children for other reasons. Other women have easy smooth short labors but may only have one child, not because it was hard, but for other reasons. A really bad labor experience can be moderated by medicine, making a difficult birth no longer a deciding factor in decision-making regarding reproduction, nor in results of the labor (dead baby or mother). Even if evolution happened that fast, these would really mess with the progress of it. > > 3. Birth is already highly evolved in humans. There’s not much room for error at this stage – if head size increases much more, pelvic size changes to accommodate would make it hard to walk effectively. It is currently a fair balance between wide hip-joint placement (allowing for larger pelvic opening) and mechanics of birth. For instance, the clever spiral the baby does on the way out – starting sideways to fit the head into the pelvic opening, turning to get the shoulders through, turning again to get head and shoulders through the birth canal with the least damage. And also the loosening of the pelvic joints (the one in front, and the two in back) to allow the pelvis to flex and open to increase the size of the passage. (trust me, those joints can really MOVE once they loosen – I’m a limping testiment to that right now, at 6 days from baby 2’s due date!) Not to mention baby head joints not being solid (allowing for cranial molding/cone-head, making the baby smaller temporarily), and babies being born extremely early in development compared to other species. Sounds pretty damn evolved, to me. > > 4. Labor and birth may not be biologically set up to be agonizing. Animal models indicate that labor runs from slightly uncomfortable to relatively painful under normal conditions, but not the screaming agony so often depicted in media presentations. And animals haven’t evolved past that despiteplenty of time to do so – there doesn’t seem to be much reason to go beyond that level (you don’t want it so easy that they babies fall out before they are done cooking, right? And as has been stated, freedom from pain is not the same as survival.). > > There are theories abounding about why labor is so painful in modern times, many having to do with ‘we made it that way’ – NOT biological, but cultural/social, etc. In fairly ancient times (Greek antiquity, say), normal labor wasn’t seen as such a terror, though abnormal labor certainly was, and there was also the risk of death, nothing to sneeze at, as far as anxiety is concerned. Soranus and Hypocrates recommended only minor pain meds, such as willow (aspirin) and hemp (y’all know what that is) for normal labor, (plus non-medicinal support such as bags of warm oil used as both compresses and body support)… and even Pliny the Elder (who dealt with a lot more of the folk-medicine approach) discusses wide varieties of relief methods for extended or abnormal labors, and barely mentions normal ones (at least not that I can find). Soranus very explicitly states that emotional support, reassurance, and encouragement ease labor immensely, and specifically instructs midwives to sit before the woman on the birth chair and tell her the birth will be easy, in order to ease the process. (Soranus: Gyn. 2.3.5, 4.2.2., according to the most scholarly paper on the topic I can find) The worst labors according to Soranus being those of women who didn’t believe they were pregnant in the first place, or those who were anxious, fearful, angry, or emotionally upset. Severe pain, therefore, may be largely a result of expectations and personal reactions at the time (though I woudn’t say always, certainly!). Stress makes pain worse, expecting pain makes one stressed, fear of pain makes one stressed, etc. The whole Dr. Grantley Dick-Read natural childbirth thing (fear-tension-pain cycle). Just by being self-aware creatures, we can make labor worse. Animals have it easier because they don’t ‘know better’, not because they necessarily handle pain better in some biological way. > > Personally, I never expected birth to be painful. It wasn’t, as long as I kept out of the way and let my body do its thing. Not comfortable, either, but far from being an agony (gas pains from eating nothing but ice chips and popsicles were worse, trust me!). Labor was welcome, expected, and anticipated to be effort, not pain. By comparison, a miscarriage at 8 weeks, which I fought both physically and emotionally, hurt like bloody freaking hell. If I were an animal, I wouldn’t have been fighting it, and it probably wouldn’t have hurt so bad. Experiences vary widely (as noted by Dangerosa), but reasonable/tolerable labors seem to me to be fairly common even among women who expect worse, and far from enough to cause an evolutionary swing of any sort (by, say women killing themselves rather than do it again). > > Using the animal model, birth isn’t excruciating - though if you’ve ever watched a dog or cat birth, and you know anything about how animals cope with discomfort, you’d say it isn’t a pleasant happy pleasurable experience, even if not agonizing. Dogs pant and sometimes yelp with the pup’s expulsion. Cats purr (a sign of stress, not happiness). “Ouch,” not “SHRIEK!” The animal model is that labor is hard work, uncomfortable, and may be painful, but isn’t an agony. Agony is a result of fear/distress/anxiety or of abnormal labor process, or of a specific set of personal conditions including pelvic proportion, positioning of the fetus, and pain threshold. Most of that is not terribly relevant to evolution, except as a side factor of our intellect and self-awareness – we’re able to reason enough to get in the way of the process, or to repeat a negative process because of a positive outcome (baby). > > Under animal model conditions, evolutionarily speaking, birth experience is hardly a hindrance to the species. Add a technology/skill like hypnosis/relaxation, or pain meds, and you’ve got quite a good shot at a vastly more pleasant experience than you’ll see on TV, and hardly something to impact us as a species. > > IMHO, evolution in humans is way too complex to even ask the questions in the OP, even if pain was a determining factor in evolution (which is doesn’t seem to be). And besides, I don’t think the assumptions behind the question are that valid, either (birth as agony). and **sonicsink** , every woman I know who has had bad period cramps has found labor to be much _EASIER_ than expected. You are already used to coping with surges of hormones and your body is prepped to hand out the endorphins like crazy. My little sister is a case in point. She has periods that make her curl up and cry, WITH ibuprophin. But she has had three kids, and said after the first one, _hey, my period is WORSE than labor!_ She said she didn’t even think about meds, because it just didn’t hurt as bad as she thought it would, and bonus, it had a baby as a benefit at the end! Her first labor was about 12 hours, and while it did briefly get intense, she thought it was a breeze compared to her period. Second labor was so mild that she did not even _know_ she was in labor until she went to her checkup and they told her that not only was she dilated to six, but she was contracting regularly, and to get her butt to the hospital immediately. She couldn’t even feel it (hint, if things are that mild, tell the nurse at the hospital to check you before sending you home - they wouldn’t admit her because she ‘couldn’t possibly be in labor no matter what your doctor’s office said’ and she went home, her water broke and she had to try not to push all the way back to the hospital, where her son was born 15 minutes after arrival). YMMV, but overall, women who have nasty period cramps are better prepared for labor both emotionally and chemically (if not physically - the cramping is a moderate form of exercise, but it is really the braxton hicks contractions late in pregnancy that ‘train’ your uterus for labor). You’ve already done the ‘practice’ part, not necessarily of the muscles, but of the coping mechanisms (even if they seem pathetic to you, I’m betting you’ve automatically learned to relax and take a deep breath, or ‘sound’ (let your breath out through your teeth or humm slightly) when a particularly nasty cramp hits - this is part of the ‘training’ women used to do for labor, before we had handy pain meds. If ANYTHING hurt, we coped with relaxation and breathing and ‘zoning out’ (natural hypnosis state)… so you’re ahead of the game!). It wouldn’t hurt to get some additional guided practice, though - it is better to have a bit of conscious control of the process, so you can apply it more directly, at will. I recommend hypnotherapy from my own experience, but Bradley method is also very good. Hypnotherapy also has the bonus of dealing with your fears in advance, so they don’t make you tense up and make things worse instead of better. Birthing from Within (book or class) will also help on that front. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-birthing-labor-so-painful/170623.md?page=3)