They Say: Childbirth Hurts and Hypnotherapy Won’t Help

Amber Robinson

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.