Birth and Pain 💥

This is an interesting one…..and a hotly debated topic too.

In ‘natural birth circles’ it can be quite taboo talking about the pain of birth……we are often told pain stems from fear, is due to tension in the body, won’t be a problem if we just rephrase is as ‘interesting or intense sensation’, have a positive mindset or breathe in the right way.

Well, SOME of this is true for SOME people, SOMETIMES.

And it’s wonderful to see people have painless/painfree labours and births, perhaps partly due to the preparation they have done. Good for you, and more power to you👌🏼

However. There are many MANY people for whom birth is PAINFUL. Even straightforward homebirths.

Yes, even when they have practiced their hypnobirthing, even if they have worked on fear release, relaxation and have their positive mindset dialled in. And that is normal too. Completely. Birth is one of those bodily functions that can be challenging. It can be painful, it can be absolutely EXCRUCIATING.

Our body literally opens up to let another human out. Some people have pain that seems very manageable, and that never gets too much. Wonderful.

But I have also seen people scream in pain, wish for death, and beg for birth to stop. All during uncomplicated births at home.

And that is birth in an ideal location, with their chosen support, which theoretically should make birth as simple as it can be. This does not mean those people did anything wrong. At all.

Maybe their baby was in a tricky position making pain more pronounced, maybe their pain receptors just work like that, maybe there are psychological factors at play, that can’t simply be eliminated. Who knows.

It also does not mean that they perceived their births as traumatic or negative necessarily. Some of those people were the MOST triumphant and ecstatic ones after birth was done.

What is the point of this? Well, I just feel that the ‘physiological birth community’ has a strange narrative around pain in birth, which often blames people for their pain (‘If you had done this differently, maybe you would have had less pain?’). This is just as toxic as scaring people out of their birth choices.

Can we simply remain realistic? Birth can mean pain. It often does. I’d go so far as to say it usually does, to some extent at least. And that is ok. We can DO hard things.

PAIN does not necessarily equal TRAUMA. Sometimes pain can be unexpected and devastating, sometimes it can be absolutely exhilarating (marathons, tattoos, piercings anyone?)……how we feel in the aftermath of pain often depends on the context in which we have experienced it. So let’s create environments in which pain is ok, should we indeed experience it, and make sure that help, support and affirmation is present when needed.