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Pain & Pleasure

Sheila Barratt-Smith D.Hyp MBSCH, runs GentleBirth classes using HypnoBirthing™ in Worcestershire and Birmingham and lectures to midwives on the benefits of relaxation during childbirth.

Mums love it, dads love it and babies love it. What is it? An easy birth. Sheila Barratt-Smith has helped many families achieve it, drug-free, and explains just why we expect birth to be painful.

Whether you’re a Katie, a Victoria, or maybe a Davina; whether you go for the silent birth, the surgical one with the optional tummy tuck or whether you’re set on a natural birth at home, one thing’s for sure, as soon as you’re expecting, you’re going to give birth. And before that you’re going to get a whole heap of advice from friends and detailed accounts from family: “this is you at 20 weeks and yes your head does look big in this”.

Then there’s the wardrobe. A quick glance at Heat, Closer or Hello will tell you what all the best-dressed celeb mums-to-be are wearing. And to the rescue, after it’s all over, there are magazines to advise you on which nappy, what buggy and why breast is best.

But what about the birth? What do you know about giving birth? You’re told everything apart from what is most important – how to have a wonderful, comfortable, enjoyable and, last but not least, safe birth for you and your baby.

Of course you’ll hear it all in graphic detail. “Della down the road had three epidurals, 150 stitches – and that’s nothing! Aunt Maud was in labour for three days and gave birth to a 16lb baby (actually true – it happened in 1906. Makes you wince doesn’t it!).

Excuse me but hasn’t anyone had a brilliant birth? Can you imagine anyone in Corrie or Eastenders being allowed to enjoy their birth?

It hasn’t always been like this. Years ago birth was a celebration, a party, a time to relax and enjoy – more your weekend at Champneys than an all night rave. Women in labour were cared for, their every need tended to by those they knew and loved. Herbs and aromatic oils used to soothe, relax and create the gentle atmosphere into which the baby was welcomed. Imagine that! So different from the oft-surgical welcome a baby gets today. How did it all change so drastically?

I don’t like to mention this but men got involved. Women suddenly became seducers of men and were seen as the original sin. Well, we might have had fun but we weren’t that bad. A church minister decreed that “God should hear the screams of women in labour” and consequently women were denied help during birth. The only assistance allowed was from goatherds and shepherds who came straight from the fields. The equivalent of a car mechanic, arriving in dirty overalls, dusting his hands and saying: ‘right, where shall I start?’...

During the Middle Ages labour assistants (the midwives and aromatherapists of today) were burnt at the stake. So without the knowledge and help, women started to have problems. Through infection, some suffered unimaginably and even died during childbirth. The baby’s life was paramount so caesareans were performed with no knowledge of how to put a woman back together afterwards, and naturally, women became terrified of childbirth.

Queen Victoria changed that in the late 1800’s. She insisted chloroform be administered when she gave birth, the first of the “too posh to push” brigade. Women increasingly turned to hospitals as somewhere safe to give birth. Although hospitals were filthy places where infection ran riot and deaths from “child bed fever” became common. Home at this time was still the safest place to give birth. The horror stories continued.

In 1913 Dr Grantly Dick-Read, author of the widely acclaimed Childbirth without Fear recognised the accepted methods of delivering babies, with the emphasis on intervention and anaesthetics, were fundamentally wrong. After attending a woman giving birth in the slums of Whitechapel he became aware of the fear-tension-pain syndrome; he had offered her chloroform and she refused, so he stood and watched as she birthed her baby in silence, with only gentle breathing. Afterwards he asked her why she had refused the chloroform. Her reply: “It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t meant to was it doctor?”

When Dick-Read returned to the hospital that morning he was told by a nurse in the labour ward that it had been a very boring night, but that things were bound to liven up because the women in room 308 was having problems. Ergo, unless there was a problem birth was boring. How little things have changed.

Significantly he recognised from his experience in the slums of the East End that fear and anxiety produced tension in a labouring mother and in turn tension produced pain. What is the difference between us and the women all those years ago. Why are our experiences so bad? Our bodies are the same; the only difference then is our thoughts. Whereas women once looked upon childbirth as a beautiful, peaceful event, we have come to see it in many cases as a long, drawn out painful battle.

In 1989 HypnoBirthing began to change the face of birthing, making Dr Dick Read’s ideas a reality for many mums and dads-to-be. In a Preparation for Birth course they learnt deep relaxation, how to change their thoughts about birth and release anxieties, how to work with their body and their baby, and take back control to make a wonderful, safe enjoyable birth achievable.

When you enter child birth free of fear, with knowledge and understanding, childbirth can be the safe, relaxed, exhilarating experience that nature intended it to be.

The only problem is, what are you going to talk about over coffee?

Pain & Pleasure

Sheila Barratt-Smith D.Hyp MBSCH, runs GentleBirth classes using HypnoBirthing™ in Worcestershire and Birmingham and lectures to midwives on the benefits of relaxation during childbirth.

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