The fuss seems to be dying down a bit now, but like most women that have had a baby I was completely fed up about one of the news stories this week.
A male midwife - yep, that a man who may have been present at many births but has never and will never experience birth personally - has said that pain in labour is a good thing, that it is necessary and prepares a mother for the hardships of looking after a young child.
Now, having tried to read a bit more about what he actally said, it seems Dr Denis Walsh said a lot of things that were actually quite sensible about alternatives that are out there.
But he ruined it by moralising about pain relief.
Birth is indeed a natural process that billions and billions of women have been through over millennia and it's only in recent times that there's been an expectation that drugs should be considered to relieve that pain.
Yes, but it's only comparatively recently that the drugs have become available.
If you watch films and TV then most people have an epidural - it's considered normal.
And fewer women in the west die in childbirth these days. That's due to the medical intervention that's available. And I refuse to say that's a bad thing.
At this point I should say that I didn't really want drugs in labour.
Thie idea of having a needle stuck into my spine, with a risk of paralysis if it went wrong, seemed daft to me.
My birth plan was to have a waterbirth, use a gymball, massage, keep mobile as long as possible, try gas and air, and - if I needed it - pethadine. I panicked at the last moment and hired a TENS machine that I didn't actually use. And I said I'd have an epidural as a last resort if I was to e.g. need a caesarean.
I was a good NCT mum, you see. Natural is best. Especially when you don't know exactly what you're in for with a first birth.
Of course the birthplan went awry. We should have guessed when no one at the hospital was the faintest bit interested in seeing it. But it basically went out the window immediately that it was discovered that I had pre-eclampsia and was told to lie down with lots of monitors strapped to me.
Lying on your back, despite what TV and films seems to show as normal, is actually the most painful position in which to have contractions, so I refused.
I'm lucky to have a husband that supported me in that. And did the massage.
However, although he knew my view that I didn't want an epidural, when I was offered one (and the midwives were fairly persistent about it), he begged me to accept because he didn't like seeing me in pain. Dr Denis Walsh says that 20% of epidurals are given to women who don't need them.
Well, painful as giving birth was, I didn't need one.
I did take the pethadine though. I was warned it wouldn't do much, but it did just enough. But then through a combination of undiagnosed pre-eclampsia and a family history of low birthweight babies my baby was only just over 2.5kg.
So I'm hardly in a position to judge any woman that chooses to have the drugs and specifically the epidural. After all an ex-boyfriend f mine weighed in at practically 12lbs - that's a Christmas turkey!
The thing is, I think mothers are under an awful lot of pressure already.
Eat this, don't eat that (to peanut, nut to pea... oh and here's a couple of hndred quid for vegetables).
Breastfeed,don't bottlefeed unless you want to give your baby the equivalent of a McDonalds (yes I really was told that).
Milk only for 4 months, no make that 6 (even if your child seems hungry?)
Don't put on too much weight, you're not gaining enough weight so you're baby must be undersized.
Feed on demand, no, feed to a regime.
And that's only the midwives and health visitors!
There's a lot of pressure too from outside.
Celebrity mums that must be starving themselves to lose weight at the rate they do.
The rattle race to have the "right" pram (it's bugaboos and phil and ted's round this way but honestly, have you tried getting them onto a bus?) and the right baby clothes/ accessories.
To go to as many baby classes as you can pack in.
Get into the right nursery, the right school...
To live up to the grandparents' expectations.
To go back to work/ stay at home/ work part-time and feel you're dedicated enough to each.
To remember your partner as well as your baby needs your time.
And now this midwife, this male midwife who will never go through this, is adding to the pressure implying that women are somehow weak or or soft or lazy in opting to take pain relief in labour?
Argh!
As far as I'm concerned, having done it, there's no right and moral way to give birth.
A birth with no pain relief is no more or less a "proper" birth than a full-on casarean with epidural anesthetic. But do me a favour. Read up on it. Find out about the options. then if you want the drugs, go for it. But do it from a position of knowledge.
But remember, it's a big conspiracy. Birth is basically the easy bit.
It's the next year or so that kills you as a parent - the zombie-like state of constantly broken sleep in which you exist, feeling like a milk cow, suddenly realising that you always come second now. (Now go and buy your parents a present if they did all that for you...)
Motherhood is hard. Dr Walsh is right about that. But the birth itself should be hard as preparation? That's a moral judgement. And one I don't think was necessary nor the judger well-placed to make.
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