I have a friend. She is heavily pregnant, ready to pop any day. She is full of expectation and joy and can’t wait to meet her first baby. She is also scared to death because she may be refused pain relief.
She is terrified and I am angry. I want to scream and go to her and get her the epidural right now if I could. And kick the doctors in the guts.
Part of her problem is money. She doesn’t have a lot of it, but even in her situation she would be willing to pay for an epidural if she could. The other part of the problem, however, is something else entirely.
The problem is that she and other women like her are being lied to and mislead. They are being told that giving birth naturally would make them better mothers and better women. They are being told that effective pain relief like the epidural is bad for their baby and elective cesarean sections are dangerous. They are being told that “natural childbirth” means safe and that medicine is evil.
She, and countless other women, are being told that they will be empowered by the pain and will emerge out on the other side stronger. Maybe this is the case for many women but for others, getting pain relief was pretty darn empowering, too. Because you know, the epidural can make the difference between being a screaming, bundle of pain and a conscious human being who is able to make her own decisions.
And why does birth have to be empowering anyway? There are so many things a woman can do to feel empowered, like you know, having a career, helping others, following her dreams, achieving her goals. But giving birth? Seriously? And to think that I assumed that giving birth was all about having a baby? And a living healthy one at that?
I believe that a huge part of empowering women is providing them with choices. About their bodies, about their births, about their children. In a birth setting, where women are very vulnerable, choices are crucial. And another part of empowering women in birth is providing them with excellent, high quality labour and birth support, including medical support, mental support and yes, pain relief.
For all the women who wish to give birth naturally, I think they should be given the choice to do so if if it doesn’t compromise the safety of their children and themselves. For all the other women, bring on the epidural!