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Why should we labour in pain?

How, why, when and where women give birth is a subject which arouses considerable controversy.

On the same day that Australian researchers link epidurals with a reduced incidence of breastfeeding, I read an account by a writer called Judith Woods of her own agonising epidural-free experience (the hospital midwife refused to give her one). True, she’d been induced, making her pain unimaginably worse than normal labour; but despite what natural-birth gurus say, even normal labour pains are not like waves crashing against the shore; they just BLOODY HURT. So I’m getting pretty sick of the

rising epidural stats being presented as a cause of alarm (“In some British maternity wards up to one in four women will have an epidural” is the usual shocked formulation; I’m astonished it’s not more).

Childbirth may be natural, but it can be excruciatingly painful and is also life-threatening. That’s why half a million women worldwide die in it every year. If epidurals hinder breastfeeding, then might I suggest that those scientists make themselves useful by researching a method of pain relief that is truly safe for labour.

Laura Tennant

SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT