“Don't be a hero” or Why Natural Childbirth Is Not Masochistic

Tip of 16G Portex Tuohy needle and epidural catheter tip (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many times do you hear the sales pitch for the epidural? “Why be in pain if you don't have to?” “Don't be a hero.”

I'm totally not into pain. I've been known to try to hide under the covers from menstrual cramps and headaches. When I was in elementary school, spanking was still common, and I assure you the fear the paddle inspired was enough to keep me from being purposefully disobedient. No piercings or tattoos for me. By all accounts, I should have been the first one in line for drugs when it came to childbirth. If birth were only physical, I would totally agree that pain medication should be standard, but the reality is that birth is also emotional and even spiritual (or at least a deeply meaningful life event).

Nobody around me cared in the least how my babies were born so long as they were healthy. Still, I just had this sense that childbirth was sacred. My mother, and billions of mothers since humanity began, experienced childbirth without pain medication. My assumption was that unless labor was very long and/or complicated I wouldn't need medication to control the pain. Had I been encouraged to rest in the middle of labor instead of given labor augmenting drugs, I would have almost certainly had three drug-free births even with long labors and two babies in a posterior position.

It is possible for most women to actually enjoy the experience of labor. It's nearly shameful to admit that anything other than actually holding your baby was enjoyable. I'm not ashamed. I enjoyed natural labor (not medically augmented labor) so much more than the numbing epidural. The epidural made me so numb that I couldn't feel my legs for several hours after or even take a deep breath. Granted, when I requested not to be numb with my last child they were able to do that, but it was still bad for me. It calmed both the physical and emotional pain I was experiencing, but it took all positive physical and emotional feeling away too.

Birth is emotional. If you take nothing else away from my musings here, remember that. A woman in labor is often not pleasant to deal with. Doctors and nurses tend to appreciate the epidural because it makes a laboring woman much easier to examine and preform routine procedures on.

If we really care so much about “unnecessary pain” why should needles be standard in childbirth? During my third labor, I complained about the huge needle they stuck in my arm for IV antibiotics. The nurse couldn't believe I was worried about a needle rather than labor. The epidural needle (which I regretfully had twice because of unnatural drug induced pain) was like an electrical shock to my spine.

Hospital birth doctors and midwives are almost always way too quick to recommend induction or augmentation of labor, but don't talk about the pain it will cause because they can always call for an epidural to alleviate the pain, then more pitocin because the epidural slows down labor.

Pain and pleasure are separated by a very fine line. It is a delicate balance. (If this makes no sense to you, ask someone experienced in the kink community, but please don't read 50 Shades of Grey.)

Very very few moms who had a drug-free birth regret the experience, even it wasn't planned that way. A whole lot of moms who experienced medicated births do regret it, even some who planned it that way.