OMG! I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time! I could honestly reflect back on that pain and know how you feel with these words!!! And to the Nurse…. not nice…. not nice…..

Actually, I had a client who went from 6 to birth in 1 hour who didn’t scream at all, although I could tell the pain was extremely intense. The only thing that helped her was to cuss, very colorfully, under her breath. It was amazing, because this woman is very mild in general, and the cussing was so gentle and quiet, but, wow, was it creative! She kept apologizing for her language, and explained that it was actually lowering the pain level. I told her if it helped to keep going, and that I didn’t mind in the slightest!

LMAO! That is hilarious!

*laaaaaaughs*

That reminds me of a joke I read in Reader’s Digest years ago. A man was at the dentist having work done. Occasionally the dentist would put an instrument in to check his progress and the guy would protest that it hurt. The dentist would reply, “Oh it’s just a measuring instrument, it doesn’t hurt.” He does it again and the guy gets fed up and says “Let me go out to my truck and get a tape measure so I can hit you with it. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt, it’s just a measuring instrument!”

PS. And since it was a homebirth, that was, of course, without Pitocin. I imagine Pitocin induction or augmentation would have REALLY made me scream.

Gold star for my fellow trained mezzo! You sing that baby right out!

So true! At my fourth birth (at home) my midwife’s apprentice, who had been a L&D nurse for 4 years, had never seen an un-medicated birth. I was the first one.

I had 4 glasses of champagne directly after my scream-filled, unmedicated, homebirth. Sure helped me relax!

Oh, and I’ve been on pit without meds. It does hurt that bad… I tried moaning through my labor and a nurse told me to be quiet because they could hear me in the hall… I was 20, and naive so I tried my best to be quiet to please the nurse and my pain level shot back up. grr….

Sadly, the nurse might try to push sedatives on her if she doesn’t get quiet…

I was also encouraged to vocalize during labor. I was quite loud during delivery and apologized. The nurses response was “If it helps, you should do it!”

I know exactly what you mean. I had Nubain during my VBAC, but it did nothing, so I felt all the pain. I was really tired (been up since about 4 a.m. after going to bed late and then having my daughter by 11 a.m.) but still remember “thinking” about things in between contractions. Like, the purple dots I saw when I closed my eyes (squeezing them shut during directed pushing *eyeroll*). I also remember thinking, “Should I get an epidural? No, it’s too late for that,” and then on to something else. I also remember thinking, “This isn’t even that bad!” LOL

I don’t want to disagree, but the one labor I had where I went from 0 to baby-in-arms in 82 minutes was darn near painless. It was hard work, but I was able to focus past the pain without too much trouble. My other labors were more difficult and required a lot more focus.

It doesn’t *have* to hurt like Hell, that’s all. I certainly wouldn’t tell any other woman that it doesn’t hurt as much as she thinks it does.

Heck yeah it’s a real orgasm like you have from sex play. There is a video you can get from Amazon called _Orgasmic Birth_, which talks about natural birth in general and not just birth orgasms; if you like reading, go for Ina May Gaskin’s _Spiritual Midwifery_ and her later _Guide to Childbirth_. There are LOTS of birth stories in there, as well as midwifery information, and while it’s quick reading (in my opinion) it’s not fluff. There are also tons of photographs of happy mothers giving birth. It was delightfully surreal to see this one hippie mom with a grin plastered all over her face, the most relaxed sprawl I’ve ever seen, and this big baby head poking out of her vagina.

Cool stuff.

If you know a bit about physiology, you know how the G spot works. (This isn’t mentioned in the books or in the movie I recommended – this is me theorizing.)

Prolonged gentle stimulation can produce an orgasm, because the G spot is part of a huge web of nerve endings in the perineum that all lead to the clit (the network of nerve endings that episiotomies and third and fourth degree tears can mess up, alas, which is one reason why it’s so important that the perineum be stretchy and in good condition, and supported during the birthing).

A baby’s head doesn’t always just push out all at once (mine always do, but as I’ve mentioned before, I am the Human Baby Cannon. Once active labour starts, I go kaboom! in short order and out pops the baby, and whoever’s in quarterback position better have a towel ready.) Often the pushing phase can take an hour or two, or more, and the baby will inch forward and rock back a little, inch forward and rock back, over and over, which is probably Mother Nature’s way of trying to preserve the perineum. Baby cannons like me don’t seem to be in the statistical majority. Funny thing that.

Anyway, all that rocking slides up against the g spot.

If some women actually have cervixes that LIKE a little stimulation (must be nice, I’m really getting jealous now) then that too would be a factor, though I imagine the baby on the g spot is probably at *least* as important.

There is also the possibility of foreplay in labour. Ina May Gaskin says that what got the baby there in the first place is naturally part of what helps get the baby out. When a woman’s partner tells her, “I love you” in labour, it’s supportive, yes, but it’s also a powerful form of pain relief when it helps release endorphins. Kissing, touching, etc even more so. If her water’s broken, sexual intercourse is a bad idea, of course, but if it hasn’t been broken, there’s no reason why not. It may even accelerate labour – sperm is full of prostaglandins, and orgasm from sex or from teasing certain sensitive parts of the female body triggers oxytocin and uterine contractions. That sounds a lot more fun than a pit drip, doesn’t it?

Kind of impractical in most hospital rooms unless there’s a great big “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the door and a lock to go with it, but oh well, there are ways around everything. And in a homebirth, of course, there are plenty of places the couple can sneak off to.

Or just the mother, if she wants to try a little self-relief to either hurry things along or to stimulate some endorphin release.

This, apart from the spontaneous orgasms that some women can, and do, have from birth itself.

Epidurals kill all sensation below the waist, so a woman who gets an epidural will never find out if she might have an orgasm from the birth.

Orgasms do not inherently kill pain, however. Some births are painful, some aren’t, and some are painful even with orgasms as part of the process. To women who aren’t used to encountering masochism on a regular basis, this will probably present a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, but hey, I call birth orgasms the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.

I still haven’t had one, and given my physiology, doubt I ever will, but they’re definitely out there.

Mothers (presumably young and unwed with “surprise” pregnancies) giving birth naturally because their mothers wanted to *teach them a lesson*? What a horrible way to discover natural childbirth! Ten years down the line when they have their planned pregnancies, they’ll be having the elective c-sections and the “give me an epidural in once I get the positive mark on my pregnancy test” births because of their bad memories. Besides, if the whole point is to tell them what a bad decision they made to get pregnant in their teens, they’ll find that out soon enough when they find out how caring for a baby can derail your social life, finances, and school work, to say nothing of your job prospects when said school work is probably minimal because you’re trying to earn a degree or degree equivalent around a child care schedule.

Should you mention the possibility of a birth orgasm in your classes? I think so, at least, if the hovering grandmothers-to-be aren’t there to heckle. (Something tells me they wouldn’t approve of your mentioning anything sexually related in a childbirth class, unless it were something along the lines of “This will ruin your social life for years to come, which in my opinion is a good thing, because I told you to wait until marriage anyway.”) I’d be prepared to offer backup information, though – clips from the _Orgasmic Birth_ documentary, photocopies of passages from Ina May Gaskin’s books, etc. This would be a good way to segue into the Why Kegels Are Good For You lecture, too, because Kegels not only firm up the pelvic floor and also make it stretchier, but one end result of doing daily Kegels is often a more satisfying experience of sexual intercourse due to a tighter, more athletic vaginal passage. More satisfying for both partners (if there are any men in the classroom, they’ll probably like the sound of that).

You might also want to emphasize that the experience of one or more birth orgasms is independent of any amount of pain experienced during the birth – some births are painful, some aren’t, and while moving around to find a comfortable position, having a supportive partner and/or professional doula, and making use of a birthing tub, shower jets, etc are all highly effective forms of pain relief, they may not block out all the pain if the pain is intense. And neither will orgasms. The orgasms are a bonus on top of the rest of the birthing experience. They may provide welcome distraction when they occur, but if the birth is going to hurt, it’s going to hurt.

One more thing I forgot to add: If the mother orgasms (releasing oxytocin and endorphins as a result), breastfeeding will be a little easier. The oxytocin helps with let-down. The endorphins, as I understand it, facilitate the release of prolactin, the milk-making and baby-bonding hormone, because endorphins make people happy and glowing, and anything that makes a lactating mother happy makes more prolactin get released. Whereas tension and stress decrease milk production and baby-bonding in general.

Can a woman have anal sex while healing from a birth that has torn her perineum? That would depend on the tear, although of course I’d wait until the lochia has stopped flowing, because even though it’s a different orifice, it’s close enough to the vagina to make bacterial exposure possible. Also, if it was a bad tear or if there are hemmorhoids present after the birth, it won’t be fun. I used to love being buggered until the c-section I had with my firstborn left me with IBS due to intestinal problems (something about having my guts shuffled around as part of major abdominal surgery; I’m told it’s fairly common). Sorry about the TMI, I felt it was illustrative. If the new mother wants some kind of sexual contact postpartum, during the healing process and before the end of the lochia, there’s always manual stimulation and fellatio. I once had a shooting contest with my very frustrated husband to see who could reach the farther point – he, with his spunk, or me, with the milk from my profoundly engorged breasts. (I won.) Again, that was probably TMI, but if it makes your mothers laugh and helps as a way to get them comfortable with things like natural childbirth and breastfeeding, go for it.