No Pain, No Gain

A lot of things leave me speechless in this world, most pertaining to women and women’s rights.

No surprise there.

I was surprised, however, to find that according to a midwife, pain during childbirth is a GREAT thing. In fact, Dr. Denis Walsh takes on a ‘no pain, no gain’ attitude.

Let me clarify.

According to him, epidurals are the big bad wolf — not for a decent reason, but because the pain of childbirth prepares women for the responsibilities of motherhood.

"A large number of women want to avoid pain, but more should be prepared to withstand it," Walsh said.

"Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing which has a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby."

Yeah. Right.

He also stated that "e]merging evidence [shows] that normal labor and birth primes the bonding areas of a mother’s brain better than caesarean or pain-free birth.”

I’d have thought the nine months of being in the womb would’ve done the bonding trick, but hey. What do I know? I’m just a woman with a simple lady brain.

Sarcasm aside, I think this dude, while maybe (emphasis on ‘maybe’) meaning well, is a little touched in his gentleman brain. I mean, he’s completely underestimating the pain of labor. Not only that, but there are so many things that can go wrong during childbirth –billions of women have died throughout history from giving birth, after all, and too many still encounter life threatening problems. I realize that there are some major problems associated with epidurals, but those and other pain relief are a godsend, if you ask me. On top of that, what about the women who can’t have a normal birth, or something goes wrong during the birth? For example, a C Section. How does ‘no pain, no gain’ work with that?

My opinion: normality is relative, even in childbirth. You have to go with what works, and no one thing works. Whenever someone, like Dr. Walsh, says something like this, I worry that women will be intimidated and pressured to be ‘normal’. I especially hate that he basically stated you’d be a bad mom (or at least have a bad bonding exeperience with your baby) if you wanted pain relief.

You can read more about this guy and epidurals here, here and here.