People are always shocked to hear that I had my son without any pain medication. Even the nurses who cared for me were surprised when I turned it down. My doctor made a remark about not remembering the last time he did a non-medicated delivery. Am I really that rare? To me, choosing not to use pain medication was an easy decision for many reasons.
- 1. I preferred to be fully alert during the entire process.
- 2. I did not want to risk being subjected to any side effects.
- 3. I did not want to expose my son to such strong drugs at an early age.
- 4. I wanted to breastfeed and epidurals sometimes make breastfeeding more difficult initially.
- 5. As a general rule, I do not use pain medication or other drugs unless they are medically necessary and they offer a cure as opposed to just blinding me to the symptoms (such as a cold.)
- 6. I believed that I could handle the pain of childbirth (which turned out to be true.)
- 7. I have a handful of friends who have given birth to multiple babies without pain medication and they encouraged me to do the same.
- 8. Epidurals increase your risk for cesarean, something I wanted to avoid.
- 9. Two words: bladder catheterization. No way!
- 10. I wanted to feel everything. I did not want to be numb, not in control of my legs, and relying on the doctors and nurses to participate in my own labor and delivery. (See The Effects of Epidurals on Pushing.)
The biggest encouragement I received prior to my son’s birth was from a friend at church who said, You can do this. God designed your body to do this. It’s not as bad as people make it sound.
She was right, it definitely wasn’t as bad as I had heard from other women. Perhaps perception of pain is more definitive than pain itself. Your attitude towards labor pain will have a major impact on your experience. Another important factor is how well you are prepared to handle the pain. Tomorrow I will talk more about pain management and the techniques I used. Stay tuned!
