THE SELF-MANAGEMENT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN: THE PAIN OF CHILDBIRTH
I do not intend to discuss each and every form of pain, but this system lends itself so well to the control of the pain of childbirth that we must have a few final words about it.
The young woman approaching childbirth is in fact subjected to an extraordinary number of
anxiety-producing influences. Other women seem bent on telling her stories of terrible pain and complications. The stories often end with a kind of negative suggestion, “But you will be all right, dear,” which of course conveys the idea that she just might not be all right. Many women tend to talk of their experience of childbirth in the way that others describe their adventures in sports or war. “Of course, I had to have six stitches.” All this has its effect on the young woman. The very fact of going to the hospital makes her feel that there is something wrong. She thus goes with a high level of anxiety to have her baby, and with the clear expectation of suffering considerable pain. Her anxiety not only lowers her threshold of pain, but may tend to make the contractions of the womb less smooth and co-ordinated. And worst of all, anxiety makes tense those parts which should relax, so that they are painfully forced by pressure instead of relaxing easily and naturally.
However, the young woman can guard against these unpleasant eventualities by being secure in her knowledge that childbirth is a natural process, and that older women often gain some strange satisfaction in telling exaggerated stories of their own experiences.
An unfortunate aspect of the problem is that the situation tends to become self-perpetuating. The woman in her first pregnancy is made anxious and expects pain. As a result, she experiences pain. Then with this experience behind her, she is increasingly nervous at her second pregnancy, and the painful experience is repeated, and so on. One of the reasons why this unhappy state of affairs is allowed to persist is that obstetricians are usually very busy people and often short of sleep. They simply do not spend the necessary time with the expectant mother to put these things right.
With these thoughts in mind, do a little preparation for the coming event. Practise the relaxing mental exercises, naturally and easily, so that you can let yourself go into the relaxed mental state when you wish it. This will also help you with the discomfort of the increased weight of the last few weeks. If you like, you can practise the exercises with pain, but this is not essential, because if you really learn the mental relaxation, pain will not be a problem.
When you feel the first contractions—this is what the older women call “the pains”
—remember what is happening. The muscles of your womb are contracting to push your baby down into the birth canal. As the contraction comes on, you let yourself go.—You let yourself go completely.—You let yourself go in body and mind as you feel the contraction.—You feel it good and strong.—It is good, pushing the baby down to be born.—It is strong.—You feel the strength, natural strength.—Natural, so that there is no hurt. —Between the contractions you lie back, easy and relaxed. —And all the time you have with you the calm and the relaxation of the mental exercises.
The baby is pushed down the birth canal slowly and easily and naturally. His head comes to the muscles at the end of the canal. You feel this because there are more nerves in these muscles. Now you relax deeper, deeper than ever, knowing that it is good that he has reached the end of the canal, and in a few moments he will be born.
There is just one other point that I would mention. Some people feel that they do not get themselves deep enough, as it were, in their relaxing mental exercises. They feel,
“This would not be sufficient if I were in real pain.” The fact is that when we are actually faced with potentially painful stimuli, as in childbirth, we can let ourselves go very much more completely. This may seem strange to you, but it is true. The reason is that in practising our exercises we lack real psychological motivation; we only have an intellectual logical motivation, which is not the same thing. So in the actual situation we surprise ourselves by doing much better than we expected.
Just one last comment. Take your obstetrician into your confidence about what you are doing. Remember that obstetricians have different views about this kind of approach, and that some still adhere to a rather mechanistic, drug-oriented way of doing things. Do not let any conflict
develop between you and your doctor on account of this, as such would only cause tension. It is best to find out the obstetrician’s views early in pregnancy, so that if necessary you can find another who will go along with you in these matters. If it is too late for this, go along with him. If he wants you to have drugs or injections, do not fight about it. In any case, you will need very much less than if you had not had the experience of the mental exercises.
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