The debate for this week on Blokeslib.com is on the topic “That women depend on drugs for pain relief too much during child birth.” This topic was chosen following the male midwife that came out and made international headlines by saying that women were too frequently opting for unnessary pain relief and that they should be toughing it as part of the bonding process with their child. This declaration has caused quite a stir in female circles. Check out the debate below and make your own decision. Vote now here.
Let the games begin…
Against by Hayley Solich:
When I was told the topic for this debate, I rolled my eyes. Why? What woman, who has had four natural childbirths, could resist a debate on whether or not women are taking the easy road accepting drugs during labour? Well, just so that we are all on the same page, I thought I’d share my birthing stories and why, over the period of seven years and five pregnancies, I increasingly took the drugs options and the results of those decisions.
Firstly, let me say, unless you have actually given birth to a baby, you have no concept of what it feels like. Like having wisdom teeth out, gallstones or a back condition, you cannot begin to imagine the pain. I have endured all three of these conditions, yet the only one that comes close to childbirth was the gallstone pain. The level of pain I experienced shocked me. So much so, that it affected my ability to mother my newborn baby. So when the emergency department at the hospital now ask me to rate my level of pain on a scale of 1 to 10, I tell them, 10 is giving birth and then I rate it in comparison as I can verify that actually giving birth to a child can be THE most painful experience a woman will ever experience in her life.
Now I am not saying it is that way for EVERY woman. I know women who have said the baby “just popped out” and even the incredible stories where they say, “I didn’t even know I was pregnant”. However, these are the very small minority of cases. For most women, labour is a drawn out and painful process. Passing a baby’s head out of your private parts may seem like fun to some, but let me tell you there is nothing quite like feeling the grazing of bone on bone as the head comes out, the tearing of your flesh to make room when there is insufficient and the contractions that cause a cervix to go from 0-10cm dilated!
I guess my point is, how many people would be criticised for taking Vallium to get through the removal of wisdom teeth, or pethidine after an operation, or even morphine to endure a really bad back condition? If we are so willing to accept that a normal person in pain is humanely deserving of intervention in the form of painkillers, why is it that women in childbirth should be any different? Yet, if a woman says, “I want whatever is available to me to make this best experience possible”, suddenly she is “too willingly opting for drugs”.
My story goes like this. I have four children. Each was delivered naturally. My first child was delivered without drugs. It was an 18-hour labour, which I LABOURED through. I was naive. I thought that by rejecting any painkillers I was doing the right thing by the child – after all, I wanted my child to have the best and most natural route into life and I didn’t want any interventions to harm my child. I opted for the birthing suite where I used the bath to help with the contractions and mind meditation techniques to get through the waves of pain. Consequently, Sarah was born rather quickly in the last stages (2 pushes and she was out), falling on the mat while the midwife was getting ready for her birth. I tore, I almost swore, and I was in shock for the first few hours of her life. When they handed her to me, I didn’t even want to take her. When they gave me the option of going to get stitched up or having time with her, I willingly handed her over and went off to endure round two of torture, as the stitches were as painful as the childbirth and the drugs once again missing in action!
Lesson number 1 for me was take the drugs!!!
But 14 months passed between the first child and the second, and my memory of the pain of childbirth was obviously dulled by all the endorphins and hormones busily running around my body. When the time came, once again I opted for the family birthing suite and the minimal intervention option. Consequently, I had a 20-hour labour. This time I was more prepared for the pain and once again I thought I’d tough it out. By the time I got to transition and they offered me the gas, I gratefully grabbed the mask and started sucking on it for dear life. They were telling me to stop sucking but I was desperate for relief. Child two was born; no tear this time (I guess child one did all the damage). This child, I was more able to enjoy, as I was no longer shocked with pain but very relieved and happy to discover my little girl.
Then baby number 3 came along. I had both my previous children in a birthing suite, the closest to a natural childbirth that I could get where there was little intervention. When I went into labour with baby 3 things were slow moving and way more painful, which I later discovered was because she was spine on spine, the most painful birthing position. After 25 hours of on and off contractions, the pain became unbearable. I went to hospital but they told me I was only 5cms dilated and it would be a while. They told me to go home and come back when I was further along. But the pain was shocking and I convinced them to give me a shot of Pethidine, as I knew I was struggling with the pain this time. The drugs helped to take some of the edge off the pain and I delivered my third child six hours later, once again sucking on the gas for help in transition. I miscarried a child between my third and fourth child and so I was particularly keen to have a safe birth with my fourth child. Carrying the boy, after three girls, it was very important to me that he get a good start in life. My doctor thought I was carrying a monster size baby, so was keen for me not to have a protracted labour. After two days of on and off contractions, they decided to induce me. To this point I was known as “The silent achiever” because of how I would just go to my happy place in my head whenever a contraction started. However, the moment they put the drip in my arm for the oxymatocin the contractions changed from a manageable contraction to almost a constant painful one as they sped up the labour. After one hour I was begging the doctor to get the child out. It was too late for pethidine, too late for an epidural and I was in absolute agony. When the doctor pushed open my cervix, I almost hit the roof and my husband almost hit the doctor, he could see how much it was hurting me. Suffice to say, within 10 minutes my son was born and consequently, he spent the first 12 hours of his life separated from me in a humidicrib.
When I reflect on my own story and how I subsequently ended up with post natal depression after the last birth, I wonder how much the horrific pain I endured in that labour contributed to my post natal depression? I was certainly very disappointed, as I could only watch on as my child struggled to get oxygen into his system and I had to wonder if allowing the doctors to intervene hadn’t caused the issue. But then I also wondered how different his birth would have been had I had an epidural or other drug intervention. I would not have been begging for him to get the child out and he would not have had to push open my cervix, pre-empting the birthing process. Sadly, it will always be a painful memory instead of a joyful one.
In a world where we stand up for the rights of dogs, horses, bears, apes and other animals, saying that they shouldn’t have to suffer pain, why do we say that woman’s right of passage is to endure the preventable agony of childbirth? I am confident to say that if you had the choice between experiencing excruciating pain and not experiencing it, you would choose the not experiencing option. Equally, if I had known how much pain I would be feeling in the birth of my son I would have opted for an epidural, despite the risks! There is no honour to be won in toughing it out in my view. I was naive; perhaps even martyr driven, and consequently, I paid the price for my “high moral views”.
If women need drugs to get through what is singularly the most life changing experience of their world, then I say give them whatever they can have that is safe. There is no shame in wanting to enjoy your child’s birth and anyone who says women are taking the easy road out, I say to them, next time you’ve got a tooth ache, a migraine, a sprained limb or an ailment that causes you pain, try going without any drugs for 24-48 hours. I’m sure you will have changed your mind too! Unless you have walked in a woman’s childbirth shoes, you have no idea of the level of her suffering, so who are you to judge?
For by Peter from Blokeslib.com:
I must admit, when I first saw the topic of this debate I thought to myself. “Just put up a blank page Peter, you don’t have a snowball’s hope in hell of winning this one.”
I thought, “Peter you are either very brave or very stupid for even contemplating this one…”. Personally I’m leaning toward the latter.
Lets face it. If there is one thing that Womanhood is proud of, it’s that men can’t have children. The human race needs the fairer sex. Especially now that sperm has apparently been re-created in a laboratory.
Anyway when it all comes down to it, since men can’t have a child. It’s pretty much impossible for a male to even grasp what it is like. Or is it?
The reality is that men spend much of their time with women. And guess what … women rarely shut up! We have plenty of material to draw on when it comes to childbirth related pain.
Here’s what I have learned thus far:
a) Childbirth is painful.
b) Childbirth is bloody painful.
c) Childbirth is absolutely bloody painful.
d) Childbirth is absolutely bloody painful and men are bastards for doing this do you.
e) Childbirth is one of those precious times in life in which a female truly feels like a real woman.
Hold the horses. Lets back up a tad. Ok, as Elmo would say … One of these things is not like the other.
Are you kidding me? Your insides are being pushed and stretched in ways they never have before. You are in the process of passing a watermelon (well almost) and you’ve never felt more like a woman?
What about the time I bought you those frilly knickers? Or the bunch of roses I bought home (they were on special) two and a half years ago?
There is only one way that I know that a woman could make such a statement and that is if they were on drugs. Either at the time of making the statement or during childbirth it’s self. And this, believe it or not brings me to the topic at hand.
That women depend on drugs too much during childbirth.
It’s not too hard to find the evidence. A short time later the majority of women are lining up to have another go at the ride
.
Are they nuts? I can assure you, I may well be coaxed into having the first child but there is no way I’d be lining up for another go.
Let me explain. Not all that long ago I was travelling in outback New South Wales. All of a sudden I was hit with the most horrific pain. To cut a long story short I found myself stuck in an outback hospital with a case of kidney stones.
I like to think that I am no wimp. I’ve had my fair share of pain over the years but this was different. I was in excruciating pain. I was literally rolling on the floor begging for the doctor to either cure me or kill me. I just can’t take this pain any more I screamed. It was 3 days of absolute torture.
The hospital did what they could with the minimal resources they had, but from a pain relief perspective, it was woefully inadequate.
Today, I still have a small stone in my kidney. From time to time it’ll give me a little bit of pain. Those around me can tell by the look of horror in my eyes the degree of my fear. I run for the water and drink up. I don’t ever want to go through that pain again. A small tweak of pain is enough to remind me and all of those memories come flowing back. The idea of living through that again scares the hell out of me.
I doubt any sane man would line up for another go.
When I repeat that story in the presence of many females I hear the same line over and over again. “Now you know what childbirth is like!”
Yer right! If I were a female, and childbirth was like that, I’d run screaming for the hills the moment a guy so much as dangled a penis in front of me. Absolutely no … ** CENSORED FOR THE SAKE OF SANITY **.
Now I’ve had a little fun with this, the unwinnable debate. But here is the point I am getting to.
Perhaps, just perhaps, when you look at the example above, that many childbirths are not as bad as many a powder room discussion makes out. Perhaps the degree of medication requested by women in the first place is a result of a worst case scenario. The fear of a really bad birthing process.
If the worst case scenario is ½ as bad as my kidney stone experience I can understand keeping the pain relief close at hand but why use it to a high degree if you are experiencing a rather easy labour? At the end of the day we are talking about a drug here. Isn’t it better to work out if it’s going to be needed in higher doses before you rush headlong into “dope me out doc”.
The argument here is not whether pain relief should be available. Of course it should be, no-one would argue that. The question posed is that perhaps it is being overused. Perhaps a fear of a worst case scenario is behind it. Perhaps there is a case for this argument after all.
