Pain-free birth just a pipe dream?

A new study says that women are kidding themselves if they think they can get through birth without pain relief. British researchers from Newcastle University reviewed 32 studies on expectations of labour pain, finding that most women who didn't want to have pain relief ended up with it.

However, what about home birth? 99% of women in America give birth in hospitals. Definitely not places which are conducive to quelling women's anxieties. 90% of births in New York hospitals are induced and epidurals are often doled out without any measures in places to help women manage pain naturally before the drugs are in place.

A 1988 U.S. study found that mothers that underwent labor in a hospital rated their pain as significantly higher than did a home-birth group. In the spirit of Sheila Kitzinger, what about accounting for those mothers that report euphoric, even orgasmic, feelings during what is supposed to be the most painful event in their lives. This study was obviously not included in the current review. More recent studies suggest that knowledge, confidence, and lower anxiety are predictive of positive childbirth. Also where is the discussion of the value of midwives? Studies show that midwives can help birthing women to find their own ability to cope.

This new review basically shuts down any positive feelings pregnant women may have in anticipating birth. Sure, it hurts and there is nothing wrong with choosing to have pain relief. However, why suggest that women are setting themselves up for failure by even thinking that they could possibly give birth drug-free?!

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/women-are-misled-into-thinking-that-childbirth-can-be-painfree-795721.html

Too posh to push? More like too scared

A new Swedish study reveals that the increasing rate of elective caesareans in the developed world is not necessarily a result of Victoria Beckham wanna-bes who are beyond the whole birth thing. According to the research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, many women requesting elective caesars are actually just too scared to give birth vaginally as a result of traumatic previous experiences and from being regaled with horror birth stories from friends and family.

Dr Ingela Wiklund, from the division of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, led the study. She said "Women suffering from significant childbirth fear indicate that they are less self-confident, unhappy, afraid that the child will be injured and don't long for the child. This clearly emphasises the need for pre- and post-natal support."

In my own study, whilst I did not have any women who elected to have caesars simply out of fear, I was surprised to find that so many of my informants not only talked about the 'damage' being done to their body as a result of pregnancy but also their intense fears of pain and their babies dying during the actual birth.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtmlxml=/news/2008/02/06/nposh106.xml