Male Midwife Tells Women Take Pregnancy Pain Without Drugs
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Women should embrace the full pain of childbirth to bond with their babies instead of resorting to anesthetic drugs, a leading male midwife has said.
UK professor Dr. Denis Walsh said the pain of labor should be considered a "rite of passage" and a "purposeful, useful thing."
The pain prepares women for the responsibilities of motherhood, he wrote in an international journal published Monday.
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"It is a woman's choice, and I don't think we have any good evidence to show that you have to have pain to be a good mother," said obstetrician Dr. Louise Kornman from Melbourne, Australia.
Walsh said celebrity births and TV and film portrayals had contributed to a culture of pain relief as normal — even though labor pain was natural, healthy and temporary.
"It has never been safer to have a baby, yet it appears women have never been more frightened," he said.
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Walsh called on health officials to encourage women to use yoga, hypnosis, massage, hydrotherapy and support from their partners as natural ways of alleviating pain.