Painless Childbirth

http://web.archive.org/web/20080719115932/purebirth-australia.com/childbirth/painless-childbirth.html

There are women who have painless labours and births, and there is an idea that this is possible for most people. It does not mean that you are a failure if you experience a painful childbirth despite your efforts to avoid one.

Every woman’s percieved pain is different and no more or less important than the next woman’s. This page exists simply to show that childbirth can be painless, yet intensely rewarding, and that normal physiological childbirth is not meant to be painful, traumatic or distressing.

Fact:

Cultural values and learned behaviors influence perception and response to acute pain. Women’s expectations about labor pain often are confirmed by their experience of childbirth.

Click here to read more about Childbirth Expectations & Beliefs

The concept of painless childbirth is really a very simple one, but it can be difficult to explain to someone who does not already intuitively know of this.

Normal, physiological, complication-free childbirth is not painful.

 

Is pain-free birth really possible?

From Laurie’s Thoughts on Childbirth Frequently Asked Questions

http://www.compleatmother.com/articles2/childbirth/pain_free.shtml

Isn’t it ironic and sad that so many pregnant women fearfully avoid such common substances as sodium, nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol for months, and yet at their baby’s birth — the crowning moment of all that care and hard work, that if added up, amounts to just a few short hours pain if any — the majority today are all to eager to be pumped full of narcotics? Self appointed “guilt-busters” seem to lurk around every corner to encourage women not to feel bad about placing themselves and their babies at such tremendous risk. While it’s true that women should not suffer martyr-style through childbirth, fortunately the issue is not really so black and white as “take drugs or suffer.”