Word from the Experts

A lot of doctors, mostly men, have argued that pain in childbirth is a good, natural thing. Some have held that pain makes the mother love her baby more, others that the worst of the pain is really caused by fear. Finally, somebody thought to ask some broadly qualified experts--women physicians who have had children of their own.

The British Council of the Medical Women's Federation asked 300 doctor-mothers: Is relief of pain in childbirth necessary? The overwhelming response, reported by the British Medical Journal: yes. Of 196 who replied, 184 were in favor of drugs in the delivery room; only eight were definitely against. The women who answered had a combined experience of 425 confinements. Of these, 66% were in hospitals or nursing homes, where it is easier to relieve pain; only 28% were at home.* But 21% to 36% wanted more relief from pain than they got.

There was no doubt in the mind of the report's author, Dr. Kitty Kate Conrad, 39, mother of two. Said she: "Even when one has seen 300 or more confinements, as I have, the severity of labor pains comes as an intense surprise. They are more excruciating than anything you can possibly imagine. I am certainly in favor of spreading the use of relieving drugs in childbirth as widely as possible." But men are not the only ones who pooh-pooh birth pangs, according to Dr. Conrad. Among the toughest opponents of pain relief in Britain are midwives, who want their patients fully conscious so they can take orders.

Last week Parliament was bickering about the surest and quickest way to teach midwives analgesia (relief of pain without complete loss of consciousness). There are still 7,000 out of 17,000 practicing British midwives who have had no such training. A bill to require midwives to learn analgesia within four years has been backed by Labor's red-haired Leah Manning. Mrs. Manning's argument: "If some doctors had a labor ward of men to look after, I think it highly probable that for the defense of their sanity they would give their patients something more than a towel and tell them to pull on it."

* In Britain, 46% of mothers, according to a recent survey, have their babies at home; in the U.S., 17%.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.