Fear & Pain: Birth Doesn’t Have to be Painful
When I teach that birth doesn’t have to be painful, some mom’s want to lose their minds. Its all we’ve ever seen right? Movies, TV, online, everywhere, we see clips of mom laying on her back, screaming. It doesn’t have to be this way, and yet for many women it is. There’s nothing wrong with making noise, this is natural, but the inclination of pain is what I’m addressing here.
One thing that really shifted my thinking of pain in birth is when I heard about a woman in a coma giving birth vaginally, with minimal medical interventions. Birth isn’t something we do, like walking or cooking. Birth is something that happens from within us, like breathing. Pregnancy and birth are physiological processes, meaning it’s just something your body does.
Think about it, a woman who is 27 weeks pregnant doesn’t wake up everyday and actively make an effort to be pregnant. She just is pregnant. Just like we all wake up and don’t have to make an effort to breathe, we just do it without thinking. Birth is the same way. I like to picture a having a bowel movement (no, it’s not pretty, but it’s a good comparison). No matter how hard you try, if your body is not ready, it will not work. If your body is ready, it does it with minimal effort on your part (if you have regulated gut health). Birth is the same way - it’s something your body does without you needing to make it happen.
I think a lot of mothers today can often forget that we don’t make labor happen. No amount of curb walking, red raspberry leaf tea, spicy food, or pineapple, will send you into labor if your body wasn’t already going there on it’s own. I believe learning that birth is something that happens from within the woman’s body, helps many women connect the pieces to see that it doesn’t have to be painful. Breathing isn’t painful, blinking isn’t painful, your heart beating isn’t painful, your food digesting isn’t painful, and these are all physiological processes. So why would birthing a baby be the only physiologic process that is painful?
Because society and culture has made us afraid of it. When we hold fear in our bodies, we become tense. When we become tense, pain creeps in. If we can truly let go of our fears surrounding birth, and if we can trust God that his design is truly good, we may be able to birth with less pain. It may be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be painful.