Kerre Woodham: Pain doesn't make good mothers

Denis Walsh. Photo / Supplied

It's a very foolish man who is stupid enough to tell women how they should be giving birth. Even if that man is Dr Denis Walsh, an associate professor of midwifery at Nottingham University.

Dictatorial Den made headlines around the world this week when he had the temerity to tell women that the pain of childbirth helped prepare them for "the responsibility of motherhood". He said that women who opt for epidurals, anaesthesia that blocks or reduces the pain of contractions, are taking the easy option and that the pain is a rite of passage and helps a mother bond with her child.

With all due respect to the doctor's medical credentials, what a load of rot. This sort of judgmental advice is unhelpful. No one birth is the same as another and to suggest that excruciating pain over days makes you a better mother is hogwash at best; harmful at worst. Women feel enough trepidation and societal expectation about becoming mothers without some righteous arse, lacking the womb and the narrow exit to deliver a child, telling them they are losers for accepting the best medical science can offer.

I know two women who broke their tailbones during long, arduous labours. Eventually, they opted for epidurals and the relief from the pain meant they were able to safely deliver beautiful healthy children who they love and cherish.

Most of us start off thinking we'll do it on our own. I can remember 20 years ago sitting in the spa pool at Wellington Hospital with an older wiser friend to guide me (my daughter's dad was sensibly asleep on my ward bed), breathing through the contractions, drawing energy through the mystical parping of dolphins on the requisite hippy CD and attempting to go to my happy place while I let my body get on with the exhilarating work of delivering a child.

"This is good," I said to my mate Joy as I waddled back to the ward. "I'm managing this."

"Ummmm," she said. "I think it gets worse."

"Oh, it can't possibly," I hissed through gritted teeth as I breathed through a contraction. "Nothing could be worse than this." And yet, a few short minutes later, I let out a wail that would have brought traffic to a stop.

"Yeah, that's what I was talking about," said my friend, the mother of two, and with that the parping dolphins were thrown against the wall, I was ready to break the wrist of the next bugger who tried to massage me and when the drip went in because they were worried about the baby's irregular heartbeat, it was over. I called for the epidural, the pain was gone and I gave birth to my beautiful girl on my own a couple of hours later. But as I say, every woman's experience is different and if having a baby without pain relief is what you want to do, go for it.

Dictatorial Den might have all the degrees and post graduate certificates in the world but he lacks the common sense of lesser qualified men who understand that when it comes to childbirth, you never, ever tell a woman what she should, and should not, be doing.

* www.kerrewoodham.com