[lettie]

Everybody has different pain thresholds and some women deal very well with the pain of childbirth and have minimal or no pain relief. Mother nature causes you to forget how bad the pain actually was, although women always remember that it hurt, but tend to forget just how much. Pain is a personal thing and is difficult to describe to somebody else.

We are very lucky in the UK because we have gas, opiates and epidurals to help us to cope with the pain. Some women also have very high expectations of childbirth and I know that it may sound daft but these women tend to believe that they won't have much pain. It comes as a real shock to them when they can be having pains for several days only to be told that they are not in labour and their bodies are just preparing.. Sometimes these women may have 2 or 3 hospital admissions before the 'real thing starts.'

On the whole, UK women should think themselves lucky that we do have access to pain relief in labour, should we want or need it. Many millions of women in developing countries are not so lucky, no pain relief, no midwife, no doctors and no hospitals, frequent stillbirths and infant deaths, maternal deaths.

Pain in childbirth is not a myth but very real, coping with that pain depends on a woman's pain threshold, expectations, attitude and support. Midwives tend to find that the women who have never had a baby before, say they want no drugs just alternative therapies, and are very rigid about what they will and won't have, tend to have every form of pain relief going once they go into labour. Women with the 'I'll take it as it comes' attitude tend to need less pain relief and be more relaxed.