I am a total wimp when it comes to pain. So no one could have
been more surprised than I was to discover, while in labor for the
first time,
that the sensations of childbirth are not painful in and of themselves...
even when they become intense. I was to experience this truth
during every one of my labors.
Each of our three babies presented
vertex or head-down (the first two were posterior).
During our first and second babies' births, I was lying down
and in hospital, with a CNM. The third time, I was at home and upright,
with a midwife again. The upright birth was by far the easiest, and
baby came down very quickly despite the fact that he was considerably
larger than my other
two had been.
Before you read on, please know that this page is not intended to give the impression that painless unmedicated
childbirth is the be-all and the end-all, or to make you feel bad if your
birth experience was painful. Rather, I hope to convey how
and why painless, drug-free births can even occur in a culture
that so fears and mismanages the birth process.
~~~
It bothers me how lots of American women and their doctors insist that
painless, drug-free birth is impossible. I and other moms I
know have disproven this time and again in giving birth to our own children.
Painless birth veterans of my acquaintance have given birth at home &
unassisted, at home with midwives, and even in hospital ... and across
several decades, too, from the fifties to the nineties. Our painless
umedicated births have ranged from darned hard work (that's me ... three
times) to ecstatic, voluptuous pleasure shared only with our mates.
In reading Laura Shanley's groundbreaking book Unassisted Childbirth,
I have learned that a woman's expectations, preparations and beliefs about
birth all play an important role in how her birth will unfold. Let me give
my own birth experiences as an example.
As I mentioned, birthing each of our three children was very hard work
for me. I have athletic experience and so am well familiar with
hard, sweaty, repetitive work. As a long-distance
cyclist years ago, I especially enjoyed tackling long steep uphills, charging
up them as hard as I could, never putting a foot down and never giving
up. In fact, I liked them better than the downhills! Similarly,
I looked forward to my labors with the conviction that they would be great
tests of endurance and strength. And that's what I got each
time: an inward-focused Mt. Everest experience, an intense journey for me and baby alone.
For me, the "climb" of labor was straightforward
hard work... sort of like weightlifting, only on the inside.
But it was the painlessness of my first labor that
surprised me, so much so that I had trouble accepting
it initially.
Though our Bradley® class and books had taught me
to keep an open mind about birth (instead of rigidly expecting it to be
painful), I couldn't help wondering if I might have pain after
all, particularly once I entered the intense phase
of labor known as transition.
Did I
say transition? Yes! For by that point, I had already
labored at home for two nights, with contractions taking a break
during the day. During the first of those two nights, I was really not sure
what was going on. I ended up deciding that it couldn't be labor
because it didn't hurt.
So I did not
rush to the hospital to seek "pain relief" or to "get it over with"
because there was no pain, no sense of urgency, just good strong
forty-five to sixty second contractions every five minutes, all night for
two nights.
On the third night, labor
returned and grew truly intense. Finally I realized this must be
it! And finally, I decided it was time to ask the midwife
to stop by and check my progress. We were all
astounded when she measured me and announced I was at 9 cm! (I'd
been phoning her on and off for the past two days, and we'd both
mistakenly concluded I was not yet actually in labor. And yes, we did end
up going to
the hospital to birth this baby.
But I'll save that part of the story for a future article.)
What was going on?
I had not mentally prepped for labor by telling
myself over and over throughout the pregnancy that things would be painless. Through the Bradley® Method, I had learned to deeply
relax during contractions, but I wasn't even doing a very good job of
that (I did much better during subsequent labors).
So why didn't my body
respond with pain? I've pondered that for some time, and think I
have the answer.
I believe that what greatly benefitted me in labor, aside from
my athletic background, was having had
previous experiences of excruciating pain
such as from migraines, dislocated knees, and acute food poisoning.
More recently, I have been plagued by gallbladder attacks, easily the most
brutal pain I have ever suffered. All of those experiences could
only be described as pain: sharp, tearing, stabbing, pounding, or
in the case of the gallbladder attacks, "deathlike".
But as each of my labors unfolded, I was struck by the progressive
and purposeful nature of what I was feeling. Labor contractions are
(for me) huge, pulling, stretching, opening sensations. Not pain!
Contrast that with the random swath of fire that food poisioning cuts through
the gut ... or the evil agony of a gallbladder in spasm.
There is a great difference between the acute pain of illness and injury,
and the sensations of giving birth without fear, inhibitions, or physical
restrictions. And my body or my subconscious, or both,
recognized that difference in a truly
visceral way,
opening my mind to the fact that the sensations of normal, unhindered,
unmedicated childbirth do not equal pain.
I could give other examples besides my own. One woman I know had
her three babies in the nineteen-fifties. She had experience
in a wide range of athletics, from the college synchronized swim team,
to the tennis team, to cross-country running. As she awaited her
first labor, her mother - herself a veteran of painless births - assured
her, "You'll do fine. It's a piece of cake." And this woman
went on to have three easy, pain-free births. Another woman I know
who grew up on a farm in the '30's, and who was therefore well-acquainted
with very hard work, found giving birth to be "nothing I couldn't handle."
While laboring with her third child, she slept, unmedicated, to full dilation
and awoke to the urge to push. Her son was born just two pushes later.
But the woman who experiences painless, even pleasurable birth does
not necessarily have to be a "jock", or a survivor of painful illnesses
or injuries. Such a woman is, quite often, simply unafraid of birth. In labor,
she does not see herself as a victim of her body or of the birth process,
but as an active participant. Instead of wanting to dull
or escape the sensations of birth, she desires to immerse herself in them.
She sees herself as strong, capable, and powerful ... and not just physically.
She tends to have found inspiration and support from other women who have
experienced painless or ecstatic birth. And as Shanley
and
others have pointed out, this woman has, ideally, worked to rid herself
of any shame or guilt about her body and her womanhood. She has no
inhibitions during labor. Birth is the crowning and supreme expression
of a woman's sexuality, and this woman knows and embraces that truth.
Lots of women unconsciously shy away from the sensual aspect of birth,
sort of clench up and fight it - resulting in pain, or unnecessarily hard
or prolonged labor, or as happened in my case, the "need" for episiotomy.
Often this withdrawl on the woman's part is because there are others present
in the birthing room. The mother cannot fully dive into birth and
get lost in the utter opening of it, because friends or relatives are watching
or perhaps listening in the next room, or the midwife is trying to get
a cervical measurement or find baby's heart tones, or whatever. The
desire to avoid such inhibiting and detrimental factors is a big reason
why more and more couples are choosing planned, unassisted births.
I want to emphasize that a mother need not actively seek a painless or pleasurable
birth to experience one. Occasionally a woman will be surprised by
a painless birth, as I was the first time around. This woman may even be totally "unprepared" for
birth - she might be rather anxious about it, and expecting her doctor
to simply "take over" and "manage" the birth for her. Perhaps she
and her husband are rushing to the hospital and baby's already on the way,
emerging right there in the car. I have read numerous accounts telling
of babies being born "on the way". Many a time, their mothers have
written things like, "That wasn't bad at all!" and "I was surprised at
how easily baby was born."
So my advice to you if you are pregnant, is to be open-minded as you
approach your baby's birth. Do not expect labor to be painful, but
take it as it comes, and do not be afraid. Remember that a
woman's body is well-designed to give birth. As your labor progresses,
marvel at the raw power contained deep within you, the lifegiving power
of your womb. And what a joyous, miraculous result ... a whole new
person to nurture and love.
