The Fear of Childbirth
is a PAIN from Womankind
(March 1972)
(Editors
Note: One of the goals of the women's liberation movement was to
fight oppression with knowledge. Women were kept deliberately ignorant
of their bodies and were often overwhelmed by the pain associated
with childbirth.)
In
thinking about health or health care, we do not usually think directly
about pain. But pain is very definitely a part of our physical existence,
and to a large extent the degree of pain in our lives depends upon
our physical and mental health.
It seems
to me that we often take pain for granted as a fundamental part
of our lives, but we don't recognize, for instance, that our attitudes
are very definitely shaped by our culture and that the ways we experience pain
are therefore culturally shaped.
Our
attitudes towards pain are also affected by our financial capabilities
for buying drugs and by our knowledge of physiology. We are less
afraid of sin if we know that we can simply get rid of it by rushing
to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin or if we know that physiologically
the pain does not signify anything serious. But there is a fly
in the ointment here. Most of us are very ignorant of how our bodies
work, and our ignorance is certainly not reversed by watching drug
commercials on television. We end up being caught in a vicious
circle: because of our ignorance, (and our fears of disease, death,
and pain), we are especially gullible to TV's promises of comfort;
and because the drug industry and medical profession have so successfully
created a dependence on drugs, we tend to equate drugs with cures
instead of seeing them as temporarily relieving our symptoms of
illness; thus we tend to avoid thinking about the real causes of
our distress.
In part,
our attitudes towards pain seem to be determined by our attitudes
towards death. A pain which seems to suggest something seriously
wrong is quite frightening, mainly because it also suggests the
possibility of death.
Death
is something which we have great trouble dealing with for a variety
of reasons (which I won't go into here). Culturally, we tend to
fear death more than most societies; it is no coincidence that
we also fear pain. A fairly common reaction for a person who experiences
an alarming new pain is to avoid seeing a doctor because the doctor
might confirm suspicions that he or she is going to die.
For
women, our attitudes towards pain are especially relevant in terms
of childbirth -- the event often considered to be the most painful
in a woman's life. Here, particularly, social and cultural attitudes
seem to play a large part in shaping our experience. For a pregnant
woman, used to living in such a highly anesthetized society (where
drugs are used to kill pain, induce sleep, quiet the nerves, and
give people pep), having to bear the pain of labor which is unprepared
for, inexplicable, and long-lasting, is a truly frightening experience.
A trip through the labor room of any modern, "civilized"
hospital will bear this out. Women literally sound like they are
being tortured, as if they are undergoing an excruciating and barbarous
experience. They scream and cry out not simply from the pain of
labor, which is unprepared for, but from a deep-seated fear of that
pain.
Women
delivering their first child have never felt this kind of pain
before; they can't take a pill and make it go away; they can't
imagine how they can continue to bear a pain which seems to get
worse and worse; and doctors and nurses seem oblivious to their
cries for help. Of course they scream! They are largely unprepared
by their doctors, by books, or by social conditioning to deal with
pain in any other way.
Fear
of pain is further reinforced by rumor and false consciousness.
The dark foreboding surrounding childbirth are part of our social
conditioning -- we learn to expect that this is a unique, awe-inspiring,
but extremely painful event. We have heard that women are better
able to bear pain than men; that women are "born to suffer,"
that pain is somehow an integral element in the definition of woman.
These are part of the mythology which serves to keep us oppressed.
Because we have absorbed these ideas so thoroughly, pain -- particularly
that of childbirth -- becomes a mysterious kind of avenger which
we are powerless to deal with.
When,
in addition to this, we are told that it is strong to "bear"
pain, weak to "give in to it," the trap of oppression
is closed: women, frightened of pain and made to be passive in its
grasp, are then expected to find strength in their suffering.
Finally,
pain seems to be made worse for us by our not knowing or understanding
what is happening to our bodies. In childbirth, especially, ignorance
of anatomy and physiology works against us since it reduces contractions
to mere feelings of pain. If we knew what was going on physiologically,
that is, if we understood what a contraction was and what purpose
it had in terms of the whole process of labor, we would feel less
threatened by pain. In addition to this, without knowledge of what
we can do to actively help the process along, we are left helpless,
unable to exert control, absorbed solely by wave upon wave of pain.
Ignorance,
tension, fear -- all these contribute to making pain worse, and
especially where childbirth is concerned, it is clear that cultural
conditioning increases rather than diminishes the pain of our experience.
This is why it is so necessary to understand our cultural attitudes.
It is possible to "decondition" ourselves -- that
is, to "unlearn” attitudes, myths, and rumors that make
childbirth a negative experience, once we understand how we got
these attitudes in the first place. It is also possible to learn
the techniques and exercises (such as those taught in the Lamaze
method) which can help women maintain control over their bodies
during childbirth.
These
things are absolutely necessary if women are to really enjoy
this event. It would certainly be liberating to be able to look
forward to childbirth with expectations of joy rather than with
helpless terrors about pain.
