Pain and Natural Birth–
A New Perspective

By Meagan Francis

When I was pregnant with my first child seven years ago, I had some fairly certain ideas about how I wanted my labor and birth to go. Number one, I knew I wanted to avoid drugs in labor, since I knew that they carried risks to the baby and me. And number two, I wanted to somehow magically will my body into feeling no pain. As a self-proclaimed “wimp,” I convinced myself that I’d never be able to make it through a normal labor and birth without the use of drugs—even though I wanted so badly to avoid them.

I wasn’t alone. Ask any first-time pregnant woman what she fears the most about labor and birth, and chances are good that she’ll answer, “Pain.” In our culture, the idea of pain and birth seem so inexorably linked that a woman might feel that she’ll never be able to give birth without the help of medication.

Fortunately for the many generations of women that gave birth before the advent of drugs in labor, “pain management” doesn’t have to be synonymous with anesthesia. Immersion in warm water, relaxation exercises, deep breathing, and strategic positioning and movement all help—but as important as these physical techniques, say birth professionals, is a healthy attitude toward the pain of labor and birth.

“If you asked a marathon runner to describe an event, she’d never say, “Oh, the pain was so awful,” says Kip Kozlowski, a Certified Nurse-Midwife and director of the Greenhouse Birth Center in Okemos, MI. “She’d say: ‘What a rush to cross that finish line, what a lot of work! I was so proud and satisfied.’”

“If you asked her if there was pain involved,” adds Kozlowski, “She’d probably look at you like you were crazy and say, ‘Of course, but that wasn’t the point!”

Having given birth to three children, one with analgesic medication and two with no drugs at all, I can attest that the two drug-free births were far less painful than the medicated one. How can this be? In my case, I set myself up for failure the first time—by focusing on pain. I spent most of late pregnancy worrying about the pain I’d heard I’d experience giving birth and much of early labor trying to avoid the pain, even walking quickly in circles as though trying to leave it behind. After a few hours I was tense, nervous, and exhausted—and in no position to cope with the strong sensations of active labor. What I thought would be my redemption, an IV dose of Nubain (a narcotic commonly used in labor), numbed me just enough to leave me feeling out of control and incoherent. When it wore off, so had my endorphin levels (the body’s natural painkiller), and I was thrown back into active labor without even a chance to warm up.

With my second and third births, I took the advice of my midwives, childbirth educator and other women who’d given birth without drugs—I simply accepted that with labor and birth there will be some level of pain, but that it is a very different sort of pain than what the body experiences with injury. Instead, labor and birth encompass the sensation of muscles stretching and working hard, like they would during an athletic competition. But can you imagine how demoralizing it would be if, before a race, the runner focused on how much pain she might be in rather than her goal of crossing the finish line? “If softball, soccer or track were presented to girls the way birth is to women, no girls would ever play sports!” says Kozlowski.

Imagining the laboring uterus as a healthy, strong organ that’s working hard to give birth—rather than an injury that needs to be fixed—is one step on the road toward changing our cultural fear of birth. There’s a common saying among midwives: “Birth is not a medical event!” Instead, labor resembles an athletic event: giving birth is the hardest work a woman will ever do, but the “finish line”—a baby in her arms—is the most rewarding prize of all.

Meagan Francis is a writer specializing in pregnancy and parenting-related issues. She also manages the office for the Greenhouse Birth Center in Okemos, MI, a freestanding, midwife-run birth facility. www.greenhousebirthcenter.com. Meagan can be found on the internet at www.meaganfrancis.com.