Don't think you can generalise here Lampman, every woman has their own level of pain and how they best deal with it.
Yes, my experience was that it
is a myth, and had suffered worse period pains on a monthly basis, never had any sort of pain killer either.Nearly lost my son, but that was due to inefficiency at the Hospital .. think 'cause I wasn't moaning an' groaning as some other women, wasn't as far on into the birth as they 'presumed', and equipment not working correctly, and the fact they left me on my own for long periods of time.
We all have our birth stories and thank goodness everything turned out OK for me. Please remember though, that women still die in childbirth when things go wrong and what they must suffer must be horrendous compared with a trouble free birth.
Not too sure of the stastics where a woman plans her second child, think most could be the result of 'accidents' .. who knows.
