Nov 22 is thanksgiving! What a little gift to be thankful for

Labor varies from person to person. Have you been taking classes that have helped with breathing techniques and preparing you for the birth?

i'm not going to lie to you, labour is hard and it is painful but there are ways to control the pain. the best thing to do is go to your local birthing classes and talk to your midwife. believe me, it is all worth it in the end. good luck

Make sure you get an epidural! Mine didn't work because I have an injury in my spine, so I felt everything.

DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT PAIN MEDICATION.

Why make sure you have pain relief? Women have been giving birth for millions of years....

Why cure cancer? Pain relief has also been around for millions of years, and it has been used by women giving birth since the beginning of human history. Why NOT make the experience a little less traumatic?

This isn't a cancer debate. I do see your point but saying to someone who is obviously going to be worried about giving birth soon to make sure they have pain relief isn't really going to reassure them that much. That's all i'm saying. And for the record i had the pamergan injection but unfortunatly i'm hypersensitive to pain relief so it didn't do me much good. Just make sure you keep moving around if you can and do what you're comfortable with, scream if you want to scream, stay silent if you want to stay silent

I think the use of pain relief should be in the hands of the mother. Some mothers think a natural birth feels more rewarding, and some worry about potential harm to the baby (even though the risk is very low, there is still a risk) because of medication. Other mothers think pain relief is a great option and makes the process much easier. It just depends on who you are and what you believe in.

You have to weigh risk realistically. You have a much higher risk of dying in a car crash on the way to the hospital than you do of anything going wrong with getting pain relief.

I'm not saying pain relief is bad. I know it is definitely a good option for many people in labor. I'm more saying that it should just be the choice of the individual giving birth

I got an epidural an hour before my daughter was born. I had a 28 hour labor.

I won't lie, labor is a new kind of pain. You have never felt pain like this in your entire life. The best advice I can give you is to stay as calm as possible, breathe evenly, and don't worry about what's coming next - focus on the present. Each contraction is a wave that brings you closer to the shore, and the pain will pass.

If you feel like you need pain relief, don't hesitate to ask. Try to keep an open mind, though. You might surprise yourself with how far you can go without it.

pain relief has been around for ages, asprin comes from tree bark for instance so people used to chew it. but thanks to evolution of medicine we dont have to worry so much about it. ancient egyptians are documented to have done open heart surgery and many cultures have cut open holes in peoples skulls to relieve pressure to cure certain 'aliments'. quite frankly, if i dont have to be awake and feeling heart surgery than i dont want to be, same with labor.
my first pregnancy i felt labour right away, the second pregnancy i didnt feel any contractions until i was 7 cm dialated, then it snowballed. i live in a rural community and it was on a weekend so i had to get shipped to another hospital 3 hours away by ambulance while in full labour, on bumpy highways while it was snowing.... omg... it was horrible... kindof like what a wish bone feels like i would think. but every labour is different, some women dont feel too much of anything. just keep in mind that it will end and you will forget alot of it. and be prepared because some women poop when they give birth, i didnt but i have met 2 that have, so maybe dont film it... up to you though.

i forgot...
the best thing you can do is keep an open mind and dont get too set on any one thing because so many things can happen and you dont want to look back on that wonderful time with disappointment. see it for what it is, the best gift you could ever ask for.

Yes do keep an open mind. I was dead set on having no drugs at all so much so that when my labour turned very complicated and i was having convultions i was still refusing pain relief, in the end they had to get my mum to come to the hospital to give them permission to give me it

whew.... thats freaky. i wanted to go pain free too, but 8cm into dialation i was singing a different song, lol.

the thing I don't understand about pain medication is that it's NARCOTICS that they use... don't doctors say NOT to use anything like that? but it's okay when you give birth? I just don't understand things like that sometimes, that's why I'm going to try my heart out doing it natural, I hardly want an IV...

It usually is more of a seditive that they give you. Sometimes they may give you some demerol. Reason is they do not want to slow you labor or the babbies heart rate down.

It veries for everyone of us. L & D can be a beautiful experience. Yes, it is painful but, it is a pain you forget the moment it is over. I had two of my three boys natural. Some have very long hard labor and some have painless short like I did with my third. Nevetheless, the end result makes up for everything you will go through when you look into those eyes. In my day they did not have "Patossun" as a induced diatlation method by IV drip like they do now. Works so fast most of the time. I remember this one time I wanted to see a delivery and the last time I peeked at the status board she was about 8cm. Went for coffee real qiuick and got back and she was in the delivery room. You never seen someone scrub so fast in your life. Wound up being a C-section anyways. But, I did get to see a dilvery before I left L & D as a tech.