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Is labour pain different to other pain?

I am back on deck this month, after a few anxious weeks caring for my elderly mother, who out of the blue, was discovered to have a major heart problem that needed surgery. She is now recovering well and I can turn my thoughts back to my work.

One thing I will say, is that having spent the best part of a month in close contact with our health care system, I have now greater insights into its strengths and weaknesses. I also know that I have seen enough of Emergency rooms to last me a life time!

I have always said that you can learn from every situation. For me, in this case, it was how I was reacting to someone else’s acute pain, especially when it concerned someone very close to me. The anxiety and helplessness I felt, and the overwhelming need to find a cure for the pain was stressful in the extreme. At one point, my daughter said to me that I should use some of the skills I have developed to deal with the pain being felt by the women whom I have been supporting during labour. At that moment, I realised that this was quite a different situation - a woman in labour is having normal, healthy pain that is productive and useful and therefore not something that is frightening or needs fixing. Watching someone experience severe heart pain is quite a different story, as it signals pathology and an urgent need for a cure. I am not stressed at all when I work with a women during labour - in fact I feel very calm and even buoyed by what I am observing. The experience I have gained from being with many women during birth was no preparation for being with someone acutely ill with a life threatening condition, who also needed my support and assistance.

Looking back, I can see how many women will approach labour pain - basing their fears on perhaps their own direct experience of pathological pain, or of witnessing and trying to alleviate the pain and suffering of some close to them. No wonder they are scared and uncertain about how they will handle the inevitable pain of labour and it is no surprise that many will resort to pain-killing drugs at the first opportunity.

It once again highlights the enormous gulf between the medical model for birth (based on an illness model) and the midwifery model of care (based on normal bodily functions). There is still an enormous amount of work to be done in educating women to the difference between these two approaches to birth......

Posted by andrea at September 11, 2006 10:30 PM