"Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music,
from your friend's beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body."
-Hafiz
Archive
Friday, July 01, 2005
Childbirth and Pain
This past week in my prenatal class one of the mamas to be said that she watched a movie the previous night with a birth scene and she "had to cover my eyes." She said that, "I would rather watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre." To which I replied, "hmm this is very telling", what is it that you fear most about giving birth?" And she replied, "I'm afraid of the pain."
I applaud her for honesty and she (let's call her Zoe) is not alone in her feelings of fear with respect to pain and its association with childbirth. I am curious about pain in general and especially curious about its association with the birth of a child. I wonder why some women experience "pain" when they are "laboring" to birth a child, while others clearly do not. I have witnessed several dozen women who walked during their birthing process up until the time the baby was nearly crowning, all the while moving in some fashion or walking only slowing or pausing to breathe through an "intense contraction." I wonder about this and how a woman who has never birthed a child from her womb presumes she will experience "pain." How can she already "know this."
Science explains that we experience pain because of the "pain-receptors" that we have in our body. So I am curious about the half of dozen aquaintances that I know who have walked across hot smoldering coals and have reported that they did not experience 'pain', and reveal that they do not have burns on the soles of their feet. How is this so when 72.000 nerve endings exist on the sole of each foot? I am also curious about the time I was camping and had a hornet land on my wrist and said outloud, "this will not hurt me" and I watched as the hornet lowered it's stinger into my arm and watched the pulsing of it's body releasing stinging "stuff" into my arm. The hornet flew away and I had felt nothing more than a pin prick that left a tiny red whelt. How does one explain this sort of phenomenon?
I invite all women who are pregnant or ever been pregnant or planning to become so to explore what she holds to be "true" about birthing a child, but even more may we question deeply how and what we believe effects our experience when birthing our babies.
And lastly I leave you with this: Does anyone know how many "pain" receptors line the wall of the womb?
Blessings, Cynthea
I applaud her for honesty and she (let's call her Zoe) is not alone in her feelings of fear with respect to pain and its association with childbirth. I am curious about pain in general and especially curious about its association with the birth of a child. I wonder why some women experience "pain" when they are "laboring" to birth a child, while others clearly do not. I have witnessed several dozen women who walked during their birthing process up until the time the baby was nearly crowning, all the while moving in some fashion or walking only slowing or pausing to breathe through an "intense contraction." I wonder about this and how a woman who has never birthed a child from her womb presumes she will experience "pain." How can she already "know this."
Science explains that we experience pain because of the "pain-receptors" that we have in our body. So I am curious about the half of dozen aquaintances that I know who have walked across hot smoldering coals and have reported that they did not experience 'pain', and reveal that they do not have burns on the soles of their feet. How is this so when 72.000 nerve endings exist on the sole of each foot? I am also curious about the time I was camping and had a hornet land on my wrist and said outloud, "this will not hurt me" and I watched as the hornet lowered it's stinger into my arm and watched the pulsing of it's body releasing stinging "stuff" into my arm. The hornet flew away and I had felt nothing more than a pin prick that left a tiny red whelt. How does one explain this sort of phenomenon?
I invite all women who are pregnant or ever been pregnant or planning to become so to explore what she holds to be "true" about birthing a child, but even more may we question deeply how and what we believe effects our experience when birthing our babies.
And lastly I leave you with this: Does anyone know how many "pain" receptors line the wall of the womb?
Blessings, Cynthea
