It's a Myth: Labour Doesn't Have to be Painful

When I discovered that I was pregnant with my daughter Nicole, one of the very first feelings that passed through my mind (apart from excitement, of course) was dread. How on earth would I make it through the excruciating labour that I believed lay at the end? Could I do it? Would my body somehow disappoint me when I needed it most? And of course, how much would it hurt?

Like me, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of many dramatic birth stories where the women in question goes into the greatest of detail, including as many gory details of blood and pain as they possibly can. They seem not to realise they are doing it, but they exaggerate and dramatize for purposes of story-telling and to come to process their birth experience.

Whilst they share their stories with the very best of intentions, they don’t realise what fear they are instilling into all of the expectant (and pre-expectant) mothers that surround them.

Even the media are at it- birth is portrayed as some kind of ordeal to be survived. As a time of necessary pain and suffering that has a happy ending. As a time where we should get ourselves booked in the hospital and grab any kind of pain relief we can, no matter what the consequences for ourselves and our children.

As a woman who has both experienced labour first hand, and has supported others through this joyous experience, I feel that it’s really important to tell you some home truths about the childbirth experience, even if you’re not ready to hear it.

It is this: labour doesn’t have to be painful.

But isn’t labour supposed to be painful?

We’ve been so conditioned by our families, friends and the media that we simply believe that labour has to be painful, and so we even anticipate our own suffering. But let’s take it down to the level of biology and psychology for a moment.

The sensations that you experience when you are birthing your child comes down to the movement of the muscles of your uterus. Your uterus exists to serve just one very special job- to birth your baby. In addition to this, your cervix, which has kept your child safely protected inside throughout your pregnancy opens up and flattens, just as nature intended. Now, we don’t immediately feel pain when we use any of our other muscles in the way that natured intended, not even when they’re a little ‘rusty’ and we’re putting them under great strain. You’d only feel it a day or two later, if at all.

So why should our birth experience be any different?

The answer might surprise you if you’re new to hypnobirthing. It’s fear.

All of those negative and exaggerated stories, you’ve swallowed about childbirth your entire life has trapped you into a veritable prison of fear. Add to this any emotional issues you might be experiencing, relationship worries, money troubles, previous stillbirths or miscarriages and it becomes absolutely clear why many women come to the labour experience feeling absolutely petrified.

We all handle this fear in different ways. Perhaps you spend the whole of your pregnancy feeling trapped and scared. Perhaps you bury that fear away until you feel the first surges of labour and try to somehow tackle it then.

However you cope with these emotions, it’s vital to be completely honest with yourself and take steps to come to terms with you fears. Otherwise, those horror stories you hear about birth could well come true for you.

How fear affects your labour

Fear jeopardizes the safe, happy and pain-free birth of your child. This happens for several reasons.

Firstly, when you are feeling afraid your body releases stress hormones into your blood stream which then reduces the effects that essential birth hormones like progesterone and the vital one- oxytocin-have on your body. Labour will be longer, slower and probably significantly more uncomfortable too.

Second, when you are feeling afraid, blood gets diverted from non-essential organs towards the limbs which then allow a fight or flight response to occur. Your uterus is considered by the body to be non-essential, so again, your experience of labour suffers as a result.

Lastly, when you are feeling afraid, you automatically feel tense and clench your muscles. When this happens, your uterus becomes unable to perform as it should to ease your child in to the world.

How you can enjoy a painless labour

The first step on your journey to unlocking a better birth is to come from a place of acceptance. If you’re not sure what I mean, let me give you this analogy.

Imagine you’re walking into a vast ocean with waves angrily crashing around you and several jellyfish moving around near you. You’re feeling apprehensive and a little scared about getting in, but somehow you face your fear and you do it anyway, attempting to stand there, hip-deep in the water with your toes still firmly digging into the sand at the bottom. The waves continue to crash around you, and you feel unsure whether you can really swim with all of this madness going on around you, so what do you do? You clench your body, try to stay firm and rigid and refuse to let them defeat you, getting knocked off your feet, swallowing mouthfuls of water and suffering as a result of your inflexibility.

Now compare that story to this one: You’re walking into a vast ocean with waves angrily crashing around you and several jellyfish moving around near you. You’re feeling apprehensive and scared but you understand the behaviour of the sea and you know that the jellyfish can’t do you too much harm. Instead of digging your toes in and standing rigid, you relax a little and allow yourself to gently move with the motion of the waves, safe in the knowledge that you will be ok and confident in your own abilities. You enjoy your swim and the unique sensations that it offers and emerge feeling happy and calm.

The first version is about resistance and the second is about acceptance. Which attitude do you think would help your birth experience?

Your body is built to birth a child and everything about your labour has been created to help you achieve this with the minimum of suffering so one of the best things that you can do is to accept its wisdom. Nature doesn’t want to harm you nor make you suffer: nature only seeks survival. So relax, work with nature not against it, and allow yourself to open up like a flower.

There are many more fantastic tools out there that you can use right now to help you get to that happy birth place, overcome any fear or apprehension, boost your levels of confidence and really understand both the birth process and the power that lies right there with you to have the perfect birth you deserve.

As a hypnobirthing expert, I can help you target any obstacles you might be facing directly and help to empower you and guide you towards how you can have a pain-free labour.

Contact me for more information.