Keep in mind women are terrified of TWO elements in childbirth:
- Pain … the normal and natural occurring pain of contractions. No woman wants to ‘suffer’
- Risk … the normal and natural occurring risks that potentially can become a problem and can potentially become a tragedy. Every woman wants to have a safe birth that results in a healthy baby, healthy mother.
PAIN: We all know what pain is. It can hurt a little or so much it’s unbearable. When humans feel intense pain, that stimulates our: fright, fight, flight or freeze. We can scream, cry, curl up in a ball. We want pain to go away. We do everything we can to avoid pain. Pain is associated to a ‘problem, injury, illness’
RISK: We don’t get out of Life alive. Life is a risk at every moment. Thankfully, most ‘risks’ don’t become ‘problems’ and most problems don’t become ‘tragedies’ but if it happens to you then you suffer.
CHILDBIRTH PAIN:
- It’s ‘productive’ … a baby is born and the pain stops
- It’s ‘finite’ … labor goes on for X hours and finishes
- It gets more intense over time totally related to cervical dilation
- It’s manageable IF … the pain is not intense
- It’s manageable IF … women have learned and use birth skills to cope, work through, deal with, handle, stay on top of and feel in control
- There is NO SOCIETAL MESSAGE that pregnant women learn birth skills and use those skills to cope with the natural occurring pain.
- The PRESENT SOCIETAL MESSAGE tells women to ‘trust birth, respond instinctively, and use another word for pain like ‘rush, or wave’.
CHILDBIRTH RISK:
- There are multiple yet not infinite number of risks associated with pregnancy and birth for both the mother and baby.
- Few ‘risks’ become ‘problems’ and much fewer problems become ‘tragedies’
- Pregnant/birthing women living in modern societies are ‘risk adverse’ and seek medical care to assess, monitor and do procedures to reduce or prevent the risks from becoming a problem or tragedy.
- Modern pregnant women and fathers-to-be too often equate childbirth pain with having a ‘problem’ and that is inaccurate.
What is the purpose of PAIN?
- Pain is a universal experience that serves the vital function of triggering avoidance.
- The nervous system triggers a sensation of pain to stop you from doing something that might cause a severe injury and to let you know that something may be wrong.
- Acute pain is protective. This is the pain that lets you know that something is wrong
What is the purpose of CHILDBIRTH PAIN?
- There is no ‘purpose’ for the ‘pain’. There is the ‘experience’ of your body tugging open a very tight closure … your cervix and opening that strong connective tissue/muscle closure causes pain.
- There is usually no ‘problem’ associated to the natural occurring pain of labor contractions
- Women still instinctively ‘avoid’ the natural occurring pain of labor contractions when they lack skills
- When women have skills, they counter-intuitively, choose to work through the natural occurring pain even when they hate it and believe it will go on forever.
We’re going to dive more deeply into childbirth pain, why so many women choose epidurals and even non-laboring Cesareans to avoid or cope with pain. We’ll discuss the impact to our Societies when we DO NOT have a societal expectation that it’s normal and natural when pregnant to self-learn birth/coaching skills then use them to work through the activity of birthing our babies in all circumstances no matter what.