They Say: Childbirth Hurts and Hypnotherapy Won’t Help
Posted by Amber Robinson at 2:02 PM on June 1, 2009
There are few things more infuriating than being told that childbirth shouldn’t hurt, as long as you don’t fear it. It’s one of the reasons so many women -and their partners – sign up to natural birthing classes, hypnotherapy and other forms of birth preparation.
But most women will tell you that childbirth absolutely does hurt – it’s not called ‘labour’ for nothing. The last thing you need after a traumatic birth is to be told you shouldn’t have felt a thing (other than an orgasm).
New research backs me up here. A new study of 1,000 first-time mothers has found that the type of childbirth class a woman attends makes no difference to her perception of pain.
As reported in The Guardian:
Half the women had antenatal classes that prepared them for a natural childbirth. They were taught breathing and relaxation techniques, but weren’t given information about drugs to reduce pain. The other half were given information about pain relief during labour and advice about caring for a newborn baby, but didn’t practise relaxation or breathing techniques.
The antenatal classes the women went to made no difference to their experience of childbirth. All the women had the same amount of pain, with the average rating being 4.9 out of 7 (with 7 being “the worst pain imaginable”). It didn’t matter whether they’d learnt relaxation techniques or not.
In both groups, 52 per cent of women ended up having an epidural to help with pain. The number of women who had a caesarean was almost identical in both groups too.
Pushing a baby out your vajayjay just hurts, OK – from the contractions to the crowning. Some women may be blessed with bodies which act more efficiently and feel less pain than others. But I’m not sure how much this can be influenced by external forces.
Of course, labour pain is good pain and it doesn’t last forever, so consider that before reaching for the epidural. Or not.
Having had two painless births myself, I can firmly attest to the fact that childbirth does not have to been painful, but that there’s more than “just breathing” to it.
You’ve made some sweeping statements and conclusions that can’t be drawn from this article, which in itself, made conclusions it couldn’t reach.
All NCB classes are not created equally. Without assessing exactly what comfort measures and/or breathing techniques were taught, one cannot conclude their effectiveness.
Hypnotherapy was never even mentioned in the article, so any statements you’ve made to its effectiveness are completely unfounded.
So, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this article is that classes that focus on unspecified breathing and relaxation techniques didn’t make a difference in pain ratings.
So, since so many of these factors appear to have not been controlled in the original study, it appears to be of poor design and unreliable in making broad conclusions about the impact of NCB education on birth.
Only when truly controlled studies that look in-depth at specific techniques are conducted, can conclusions be drawn about what type of birth preparation is most effective.
I ‘breathed’ through my labour and although there was pain, it wasn’t unbearable. I had no drugs, just used massage, homeopathics and hot water.
I believe the culture of fear around birth increases the expectation of pain and undermines a womans faith in her own ability to birth.
The journal that published this study lists editors who are obstetricians, whose primary objective is to justify their own methods and expertise. The western medical establishment has no place for hypnotherapy or natural methods of any kind – as the only acknowledged treatments must involve either drugs or surgery.
When we see a study that actually includes hypnobirthing specialists (or even mentions the word “hypnotherapy”), then perhaps we can discuss this further.
This article seems to be one borne out of bitter frustration at having been told that childbirth doesn’t have to be excruciatingly painful. The author jumps at the opportunity to say “See, I told you so! None of that natural stuff really works!”
Many, many women have had painless (or minimal pain) childbirth experiences. You simply won’t read about them in a medical journal or study published by western doctors.
I’d love to see any of the above posters hypnobreathe their way through an emergency caesarian!
I’m neither bitter nor frustrated, having had two drug free natural births, one of which was very pleasant and didn’t particularly hurt much. But just as all birthing classes aren’t created equal, neither are all births. And that’s something that sometimes isn’t acknowledged in a lot (and I’m not saying all) of the painless birthing rot that is out there.
This article adds nothing helpful to the discussions of natural childbirth, the value of hypnosis, and the origins and functioning of pain except to add a childish “oh huh!” to the well-documented argument that painless childbirth is possible. The women commenting are already evidence that of this. So am I.
Aside from the idea that childbirth pain comes from fear, even painless surgery with hypnosis and no chemical anesthesia is well-documented. Therefore, whatever your opinions about how unavoidable childbirth pain is, we must assume that even “normal” pain is a mechanism that can be turned off.