"Just put up with pain of childbirth" - Male Prof

[MoreKisses]

Just put up with pain of childbirth: UK professor Dr Denis Walsh

Article from:
July 14, 2009 12:00am
WOMEN should embrace the full pain of childbirth to bond with their babies instead of resorting to anaesthetic drugs, a leading male midwife says.
UK professor Dr Denis Walsh said the pain of labour should be considered a "rite of passage" and a "purposeful, useful thing".
The pain prepares women for the responsibilities of motherhood, he wrote in an international journal published yesterday.
Australian obstetricians responded by saying women need to be free to make their own decisions.
The number of women having epidurals has risen to 35 per cent of all natural births at the Royal Women's Hospital, but obstetrician Dr Louise Kornman said it was important for women to make individual choices.
"It is a woman's choice and I don't think we have any good evidence to show that you have to have pain to be a good mother," she said.
Dr Walsh said the "epidural epidemic" sweeping maternity units should be abandoned in favour of a "working with pain" approach.
"A large number of women want to avoid pain, but more should be prepared to withstand it," he 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."
Dr Walsh said 20 per cent of epidurals were given to women who did not need them.
He said celebrity births and TV and film portrayals had contributed to a culture of pain relief as normal - even though labour pain was natural, healthy and temporary.
"It has never been safer to have a baby, yet it appears women have never been more frightened," he said.
Risk-averse doctors were increasingly providing epidurals on demand, he said.
But Dr Walsh warned they increased medical risks such as prolonged first and second stages of labour and the chance of the baby's head being in the wrong place.
He called on health authorities to encourage women to use yoga, hypnosis, massage, hydrotherapy and support from their partners as natural ways of alleviating pain.
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists president Dr Ted Weaver said some women benefited from triumphing over the struggle of childbirth.
But others could not cope with the pain and should be given every option to manage their own labour.
He said greater attention should be given to supporting women through labour.
"If a woman does get one-on-one maternity care from a midwife she is less likely to need an epidural," he said.
"Maybe our maternity system does need to change a bit to allow that to happen.
"What we want to get away from is the sort of maternity care where mothers are given an epidural to shut them up so they can . . . be baby-sat while the labour progresses.

What are everyones thoughts on this?

[Pax]

he is not wrong really.

I would have to agree with him.

[MoreKisses]

Thought I should respond considering I posted it.

I may be a bit naive because I haven't yet had a baby but I think everyone should have the option and should not be looked down upon for their decision.
In the same way that we are all different and our pregnancies are all different, why or how would the birth be the same for every woman?

I'm due in August and so far do not 'plan' to use any drugs and would 'like' to do it naturally. I have booked myself into a hostipal that will only give me drugs if deemed 'medically necessary' and I cannot just go in and say 'I plan to use drugs' but I do have an open mind that that just might not be how it will work out.

The article is probably right in saying that 20% of women do not 'need' the drugs, but at the same time... who are they to judge what someone else needs or not. There are plenty of things we do not 'need' in life but still have...

[ManekiNeko]

I once had a male collegue say "I wish I could go through child birth. So I could tell women to stop winging because it isn't that bad."

[Teley]

he is not wrong really.

I would have to agree with him.

Yup even though he is male I would have to agree with him.

[bronny-jane]

i shudder when some one says they want an epidural

i do think it is a rite of passage...

i did have pethidine, but still felt everything...

besides, it cant be that bad, ive done it 4 times..and i cry when i scrape my knee.. never cried or screamed when giving birth...

[naiwen]

I think this has already been posted elsewhere on the hub.

[canberramomma]

I think this article was very badly written (in several publications) and really misrepresented what this British midwife was trying to say.

The guts of his report (to midwives) was that the support system needs to be much stronger and that pain management shouldn't be given to make the medical profession's task easier at the risk of alienating the mother from a natural process.

He acknowledges that pain relief and epidural has a valid place in difficult childbirth, however, it is seen as the 'norm' and women are often left feeling that they don't have the choice to birth the way they were intended to.

Here is a related comment on the reported article (from a feminist blog):
http://feministphilosophers.wordpres...o-denis-walsh/

[Ana Gram]

I agree that it is badly written. It has focused on a man seemingly saying "birth isn't that bad, you don't need drugs". And that will immediately get a reaction from every woman who has ever had a horrendous birth. I know lots of women can withstand it but it really bothers me when I hear people say (especially women who have had children) say it's not that bad.

I agree with his sentiment but I don't see obstetrics embracing yoga on the labour ward.

[Bubmum]

When we were doing our antenatal classes at the hospital, and at the doula college..they were all saying the same thing, and that never became a headline.
They are trying to make it out to be a big deal because he is a male midwife. I actually thought, awwwwww, what a sweetheart. A man taking an interest in women's business.