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Natural Birth
meagan.pilkington
member
Your perception of pain (or discomfort) during birth
meagan.pilkington
member
I'm curious what people think... do you feel that the language (words, perspectives, etc) used in society by doctors, family, friends, etc., to talk about labor/delivery (and childbirth in general) influenced your perception of discomfort/pain during childbirth?
I'm writing a little paper for a class. My topic is about the effects of language on thought, and whether habitual thought patterns can influence perception, specifically focusing on women's perception of pain in childbirth. I thought it'd be cool to get some anonymous, real-life comments to include in the paper if you all don't mind 
TIA!
For example, did you PLAN to have a med-free birth and do you think your methods of talking about/thinking about the experience beforehand helped you cope with the "pain" or alleviate it altogether? Did horror stories from friends/family make you feel more susceptible to feeling pain or not bother you at all?
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Re: Your perception of pain (or discomfort) during birth
I don't think my perception or language made any difference to my experience.
I've heard lots of awful birth stories, and heard lots of descriptions along the lines of, "it's the worst pain you can imagine." but I've had two wonderful med-free experiences.
Painful? Yes. Hard-work? Yes. But anything I couldn't handle? No.
What I now know about myself is that when I'n transition (traditionally thought to be the toughest part of labour) I lean against the shower wall and think, "I cannot do more than this". Not I cannot do THIS. But I cannot do MORE THAN THIS.
It is only in hindsight that I realise I was in transition and see that that was as bad as things ever got.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
This is very interesting!
I was told that giving birth was like running a marathon, and that if I could do that, I would be in good shape. I am nowhere near capable of running a block, let alone a marathon. That said, I really though I had a high tolerance for pain and that I would be able to take it.
I couldn't. At all. And I was spastic. I labored 26.5 hours. I had an epi, but it got magically turned off while I was laboring. I felt everything from about 8cm on - her birth (she was 9 pounds), and the d&c I had to have afterwards. (Fail on the doctors for not CHECKING to make sure I had pain relief, despite my very, very vocal protests. I believe it was pretty obvious the epi wasn't working during that "surgical procedure.")
No one could've prepared me for that. Yes, they told me too "Most women say it's the worst pain they've ever felt." But I'm pretty sure this rose above & beyond what I was capable of imagining as pain. Despite what I heard, I thought I was stronger, and definitely was not. And because of that, I am scared to even consider having another baby.
I absolutely believe that language affects perception.
Before I gave birth I approached it as a huge physical challenge, like climbing a mountain or running a marathon, or a very intense workout. I played college sports, and training was at times painful (think wind sprints - those are surely not fun!) so I drew on those experiences. "No pain, no gain." But, I refused to consciously use the word pain and told my DH and MW that I didn't want to talk about pain. They used open ended questions like "how are you feeling now?"
I focused on stories about how the pain of childbirth is different because it has an end and it's the means to an end. It was "painful" but it wasn't anything I couldn't work through. And yes, it was more intense than anything I could have imagined. My approach did not alleviate the pain, but helped me feel confident that it was a normal part of childbirth that I could handle.
I didn't really hear any horror stories. In fact, my sister said that she wished she didn't get an epi, and the only reason she did was because her DH wanted her too because he didn't want to see her "in pain."
To continue the physical challenge metaphor, after you win a big game or are at the top of a mountain climb - it's not the pain you remember but the accomplishment. Just like with my natural birth. I really, honestly can't remember the "pain" now after 23 months. I did for a long time, but my memory of it has faded. I know I experienced it, but unlike my wisdom teeth pain, I can't really remember the feeling. When I think of my wisdom teeth experience I cringe, but I don't when I think of my birthing experience.
Hope that helps.
I think that the expectations you have going into labor can influence the amount of pain you feel while in labor, but not totally diminish all pain. For example, I went into labor thinking it was a natural process and while there would be pain it would be more like exercising pain. Other than the time I was on pitocin, I had pain during labor and delivery but it was mild and definitely not unbearable. I found my labor and delivery experience to be amazing. I did have my mother's example of delivering my twin sisters without pain meds and delivering me without pain meds to look back on. My MIL also had relatively easy labors and actually complained about giving birth in the 60's with one of her sons and the doctor gave her a spinal block as standard procedure that didn't take effect until the baby was born. She refused meds with her subsquent children.
My friend on the other hand had been told by her sisters how painful labor and delivery was. She did very little research on labor and delivery prior and was very frightened of the process. She planned on getting and got an epidural. Her description of her labor was that it was extremely painful until getting the epidural and then even with the epidural it really hurt to push the baby out.
Now we're two totally different people but I do believe that our expectations going into birth did to some extent influence the amount of pain we experienced in our labors. I don't think it was the only factor but it was a factor. var fctb_tool=null; function pj4hpvEjs_6h(t) { fctb_tool=t; start(fctb_tool); }
I planned for a med free birth and while positive lanuage and people was important to me it was my mind set that helped. I kept it in my head that the pain would bring my little girl to me. I kept thinking my body is made to do this and it's how I'll have my sweet baby. I ignored horror stories because everyone is different and every birth is different. It helped me to know that if I need the meds I could always ask for them.
I hope that helps.
I am in the process of preparing for a natural child birth using the Bradley Method. I recommend reading that as part of your research if you have time.
I have also been referring to "labor pains" as "baby hugs" because it's like my body is hugging my baby.
I don't mind the word contraction - in fact I like it. If you contract your arm muscle, it doesn't hurt. When you do a hard workout and contract your muscles it only hurts if you do it wrong. It may be sore after...but the actual contraction doesn't hurt.
First Child born
5/5/14 and 6/5/14
11/14
Chemical Pregnancy
9/5/15
Second after severe bleeding for 18 weeks due to subchorionic hematoma
Expecting Number 3 due 10/31/2020
I think for me the biggest influence was my mom. She had med-free childbirth with me and my brother and I grew up thinking that childbirth was a very normal and natural experience that your body is equipped to handle all by itself. You produce natural endorphins that help you deal with the pain. I just looked at it as a normal body process.
Sadly I ended up with a c/s (although labored med free for 16 hours) and looking back I think that part of the reason it didn't work is because I tried to interfere with the natural process by trying induction techniques because I was upset about being overdue. This time I am going to try to listen more to my body.
After being through 2 unmedicated births myself and being at 4 (almost 5 - missed one birth by 5 min) births as a friend or sister, I think perception does play a roll. However, I also side-eye the "baby hugs" or not saying "pain" at all. It's not easy, but it's not mind-blowing hard (scale of 1-10 with 10 being most painful, I'd say labor only got to an 8 ever for me). That said, I think positive perception and thinking play a lot into enduring the lengths and trials of any typical labor and fear of unknown or pain can slow or hinder labor.
...baby #3 is here...
I think that this is tricky, since childbirth is so different person to person, and it's one of the hardest things for people to describe, especially since the actual sensation of pain isn't often "remembered".
For me, it was so mental and emotional, along with the obvious pain attached to it. (I'm sure it's like this for a lot of people). I wasn't prepared for the mental and emotional part as I was for the pain. I tried my best to only read or listen to positive stories, and stayed away from horror stories. I don't really think that hearing them would've distorted my feeling of the pain, but probably would've made the emotional part of it harder. Those are the things that aren't often described by others telling their story because words will never describe it.
This is very true and actually something I hadn't really remembered until you said this! It is an incredibly emotional experience. I remember in my labor with my son, at one point I started to cry. I honestly didn't know why I was crying and I kept saying that to my support team. (DH, mother, doula.) I wasn't in that much pain, I wasn't all that tired, I didn't even necessarily feel all that overwhelmed necessarily, my body just wanted to cry! Luckily all three of my support people understood, (probably even better than I did) what was going on and didn't take it as a signal that something was wrong or that I was unable to handle the experience. They were able to communicate to me that my body was simply responding to the onslaught of hormones and adrenaline that are necessary for labor. However, if a woman who was unfamiliar with labor was to see that, she probably would have interpreted my tears as me being in an overwhelming amount of pain- to the point that I couldn't handle it. It would have been a very scary thing for a woman who didn't understand what was happening to witness.
No. My labour hurt because it hurt. It didn't hurt because someone told me that it might.
I actually think the opposite. I see so many women try so hard to reframe everything as "pressure," "waves," etc. I think that if a woman hears only that and really thinks that labour is going to be pain-free, she is going to be in for a world of surprise when she finds out it hurts like hell, and be that much more likely to beg for the drugs, wondering "What the hell happened to me?!" I've actually read birth stories from women who have use the words "betrayed" or "misled" because they believed that a positive attitude would be enough to make it through and were completely blindsided by the pain. Likewise, I think, for me, knowing it was going to hurt gave me the stamina to make it through. It's going to suck donkey balls, yes, but it's going to come to an end and I can live through it.
When I was pushing, my midwife kept saying "Yes, there's lots of pressure. Breathe through the pressure" and I felt like kicking her in the teeth because no matter how many times she said that, it did NOT make me think that what I was feeling was pressure instead of mind-numbing pain.
That being said, every labour is different and I have heard some women say that it wasn't THAT painful, but I don't think it's due to positive reframing, I think it's due to circumstance. My mom said her first birth wasn't that bad, more of a "pressure" type thing, but her second was AWFUL, and she was begging for the drugs. I doubt her mindset changed to a more negative space after her first positive birth. I just think all births are different.
ETA: I think perception can have an impact, but it will not make labour pain-free. With my first son, I laboured for 16 hours and pushed for three, unmedicated, before I got a c-section. Even though it hurt, I was able to maintain a positive "I can do this" mindset until it was decided I was getting a c-section. The time between deciding to get the c-section and actually getting it was by far the worst part of that labour, because I lost my "I can do this" mindset. It became excrutiating, and the only thing that changed from one contraction to the next is that I knew that the contractions were pointless now, as baby wasn't coming out.
With my second son, in an all-natural homebirth, I was confident that I could handle the pain. However, I had a very short labour, which sounds ideal, but actually made it difficult emotionally. I'm quite confident that I started labour in transition, based on the severity of the pain and the closeness of the contractions (my first contractions came on three minutes apart and progressed to two minutes apart soon after). Because I had laboured with my first son for 16 hours, it did not occur to me that I might be approaching time to push. I really thought I was in early labour and that I would be dealing with this pain (or worse) for another 16 hours. That feeling made it so hard for me to cope with the pain, and I couldn't get a handle on myself. Between contractions I kept psyching myself up to handle it, but the second the next one hit I was buckling at the knees and crying out. I think part of it- not all of it, but part of it- is that I couldn't understand why it was so painful in early labour and it gave me such a feeling of hopelessness. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with that long- I only laboured for 45 minutes before pushing- but I do think that if I had known how far along I was, or was given something to help me cope emotionally, it might not have been as bad an experience (the midwife didn't arrive until well after I started pushing, so I never got an exam to tell me how far along I was).
The language used to talk about birth had nothing to do with my success at going med-free. I focused on the women in my family that had done it before me. My aunt had three children med-free, one of them was breech and they manually flipped him three times before he ended up coming out feet first anyway, all combined my cousins have had 9 children med-free including a set of twins, my mother had me med-free even though she's only 4 feet 11 inches and I was 9 lbs 10 oz.
I just focused on their success, the knowledge that everything I felt was natural and accepted the pain.
I have several friends who were going to delivery med-free and ended up getting epidurals. They all told me before hand just how much it hurt. My Mom and MIL both had natural births and they made me think it was possible. I'm stubborn, so I was determined to have a natural birth.
When I found out I was pregnant, my OB's office had Hypnobirthing classes. I looked into it and decided that was the method for me. I took the classes and really embraced the philosophy. I stopped watching movies that showed childbirth, because they make it as dramatic as possible. I wore a pin that said "Please, only happy birth stories. My baby is listening." I listened to the positive affirmations and practiced the breathing and relaxation techniques. I spent my pregnancy preparing to feel pressure, not pain. I wasn't scared about labor and birth, I was excited and ready for it.
My labor and delivery were wonderful. While there was mild pain with every contraction, I was able to fully recover between contractions, and my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart from the time they started until I was fully dilated, and then they got closer together. At no point did I feel like I couldn't do it, nor did I want to ask for pain meds. We had it written in my birth plan not to ask me about pain nor offer meds and the doctors and nurses followed this. The only person who mentioned it was my Mom. She was trying to be supportive and said "You're doing such a wonderful job, I know how much it hurts." DH kindly interrupted with "We don't mention pain." That was my fault, I told DH, the doctors and nurses, but failed to mention it to Mom.
The only real discomfort I felt was the two or three contractions when my body was telling me to push, but I was fully dilated yet, so the nurse was telling me to breath but not push. That was difficult, but short lived and stopped as soon as I was able to start pushing (breathing the baby down).
I was very tired by the time I was able to start pushing, since I had already been in labor for 14 hours, then I was pushing for 1.5 hours. After I gave birth though, I felt energized and the next day I was telling everyone how wonderful my experience was.
I totally believe that perception of pain makes a difference. I truly believed that if I stayed relaxed and allowed my baby and body to work together I would have a great birthing experience and I did.