See, I have NEVER gotten the reasoning for this! The baby is out. The mom needs stitches (often because the doctor CUT her) and then they flat out refuse to give any type of numbing for the stitches? Why the deep seated need to outright punish a woman for birthing without an epidural? I can’t see any reason other than being on a power trip.

Oh no way! I had a natural birth with lidocaine for stitches. My OB accidentally started stitching without and then apologized and gave me a shot. That seems extraordinarily cruel to me.

I think Kat hit the nail onthe head–its a desire to punish the woman (for her “failure to comply”) and a power trip.

That said…how many folks here have actually seen the volume of lidocaine that they use? They fill up a shot glass with the stuff. There isn’t exactly a pocket in your perineum waiting to be filled with lidocaine…so injecting it has to do some damage in and of itself. I know the most painful part of my first birth was getting that lidocaine injected. I do wonder if it would have been less painful to skip the lidocaine and just get the stitches? Or better yet…I’ve heard that surgical grade superglue is effective for first degree tears….

@ Knitted in the Womb,

I didn’t see how much lidocaine the mw injected into me, but I know that the shot hurt, and the lidocaine didn’t go quite far enough, and I could feel one or two of the stitches that she did. However, the pain of one stitch was about equivalent to the pain of one shot, so given the choice between one shot of lidocaine and 5-10 stitches without, I’d take the shot. I did have a 2nd degree tear, though but the superglue sounds interesting!

Agh! This is such an abuse of power, and a punishing attutude! Remind me again why we ever started letting doctors deliver babies?

I think most docs are so used to working with women on epidurals (~95% at the hospitals near me) that they don’t think. Most truly don’t understand the point of a natural birth – and it isn’t to be a hero and feel pain!

Yeah, my lidocaine didn’t help very much. I could still feel every single stitch, but maybe not as bad as if I didn’t lidocaine? It still hurt.

I had a doula client who was told by the doctor on call “well, if you’d have had an epidural, you wouldn’t feel this” when her resident was stitching up my client BEFORE the lidocaine fully took effect. WTH?

@ Nikki “I had a doula client who was told by the doctor on call “well, if you’d have had an epidural, you wouldn’t feel this” when her resident was stitching up my client BEFORE the lidocaine fully took effect. WTH?”

And that was a lie. I had an epidural with my first birth, and I STILL felt every stitch from the episiotomy repair. Epidurals are not 100%, it’s a known fact they can leave sensation in some spots, even if they numb others.

Here’s a thought: LISTEN to the person who is being stitched on whether or not they feel it or want to have some pain relief in the area being stitched. Strange concept, I know.

See, this is why I love my backup physician– I went in to his office to get a tear stitched up after my homebirth, and he gets out the lidocaine and goes “hey, you had a 9 lb baby with no pain meds, we’ll make sure you don’t feel this part!” It still hurt, but at least he tried to give the injection time to work before he started stitching.

@NG – Now THAT’s what I’m talking about! Two thumbs way up to him!

I had 4th degree tears after a homebirth and had to be sent to the local L&D for stitches. After the shot, the doc started stitching and when I told him that I could feel it and it hurt, he told me that I was wrong?! So, after 12 hours labor with a asynclitic baby who was pretty much upside down and having waited on the doc for over an hour while he preformed an elective c-section, I was a smartass and told him every single time he stuck me until he said, “maybe you can still feel it” and gave me another shot. I ended up with the equivalent of over 100 stitches for 3 separate tears!

I was stitched up for a 3rd degree tear – and the stitches hurt way worse than the tear, so I asked them if there was anything they could give me for the pain, and they told me no!

It was a doctor that stitched me up, so I wonder if he just didn’t feel like stopping because he was in a hurry, or if it was because I was bleeding so much they nearly offered me a transfusion… his sake, or mine? hmmm.

Just cruel to not give some kind of numbing agent. I’m allergic to lidocaine, so they had me get high on laughing gas before the stitches, and that worked great.

After birthing without an epidural and tearing naturally my doctor asked if I wanted a numbing agent for the stitches. I said no because I don’t like needles. After almost vomiting after the first stitch I changed my mind! So she gave me the shot of lidocain and waited for it to work before continuing. I wish she could be my doctor for this birth too. Nothing was done to me or my baby without my consent it was a very happy hospital birth!