Yes, you CAN give birth without pain
IT IS possible to give birth without pain or drugs (Mail)? Yes — I gave birth to three children in 1962, 1963 and 1966. The first labour lasted nine hours and I had no pain at all, apart from a brief soreness as the baby was delivered. The second lasted six hours and again there was no pain. The third was 48 hours — and the only pain was for ten minutes before delivery. When I was pregnant with my first child, I bought a book by obstetrician Grantly Dick-Read called Childbirth Without Fear. He stated that, physiologically, there was no reason childbirth should be painful, and that many women experienced pain only because they were tensing up through fear. Mr Dick-Read said when women went into labour, they needed to be unafraid, relaxed and confident that the birth would be pain-free. They needed, in effect, to detach their body from their mind and allow their body to do the job it was made for. I duly joined a class to learn relaxation exercises. Mr Dick-Read recommended that relaxation should be practised every day for an hour before the baby was born, which I did. I also took raspberry leaf tea every day (my grandmother assured me this would help with an easy labour). With the birth of my first child, I expected to feel no pain — and I felt none. I went into labour at 11pm and the midwife delivered the baby at my home, with the help of my husband, Bobby, at 8.15am the next day. No stitches were required (that was the only thing I was fearful of). When I went into labour with my second child just before 9am on a Thursday, my husband went out to call the midwife (we had no phone at home). She said she would be back when she had attended to several other women. So my husband went to work at the school opposite our flat. I was left with my 13-month-old to look after and the housework to do. I remember the gasman calling and reading the meter. although I couldn’t lie down and relax, I just told my body to get on with the job it had to do. When my husband was back for lunch, I told him I didn’t think I could manage a proper meal. He replied: ‘That’s OK, scrambled eggs will do.’ New men were in short supply in the Sixties! We had lunch and when the dishes were done I went to bed and practised the relaxation exercises. The midwife came and the baby was born at 3.15pm. I started labour with my third child, a girl, at 4pm on Friday. She was born at 4.14pm on Sunday. The two boys had measles at the time, so I spent the Saturday in between looking after them with the help of my mother-in-law, who had come to stay to assist with the birth. Though I stayed in bed on Sunday as I was tired, I had only — bearable — pain about ten minutes before the delivery. Three natural, glorious births. Mrs MaRlene haRRis,
Barnsley, s. yorks.