Why Labour Hurts 1

From the feedback I have received regarding pain free labours it seems that people are just too brainwashed by society to believe. OK, but I refuse to give up.
The uterus is basically a bag of smooth muscle. It is very similar in its design to the stomach. They both have three layers of smooth muscle each. These layers work together when contracting and relaxing. The stomach to churn up food and drink to digest it and the uterus to open the cervix and push a baby out.
Have you had anything to eat today? OMG you must be in agony if the smooth muscle in your stomach is contracting. Did you send for an ambulance and get rushed to hospital for an epidural? No. Why not? From what people have told me, when smooth muscle contracts it produces pain. If this is correct then every time you eat you must be in pain.
Smooth muscle is not designed to cause pain when it contracts under normal conditions. Simple. Then why does uterine smooth muscle seem to cause so much pain when it starts to contract with most labours?
See my next post for the answers.

After Earth, a brilliant analogy.

Went to see the new film After Earth at the weekend and the analogy to painful labours was striking.

The film is about some aliens that make a creature that can only see humans when we are afraid, they can smell the pheromones that we secrete when a big scary monster is about to kill us. Really.

Pretend that the monsters are the doctors at your local maternity unit. When you arrive at the hospital in labour, if you are secreting adrenalin due to anxiety then they can smell your pheromones and will pounce.

• They will force you onto a bed so that your uterus is working against gravity and the contractions become stronger and so become painful.
• Once you are in pain they will offer you an epidural to ease the pain they have just caused. A needle will be stuck into you to introduce a drip in case the epidural drops your blood pressure and your baby is put at risk. Another needle is stuck into your back to introduce the catheter for the epidural drugs.
• Your urge to push may be compromised by the epidural so the monster, sorry doctor, will have to slice a section of your perineum with a pair of scissors to allow access to your baby via forceps or kiwi extraction. The baby is then pulled from you which may cause bruising of his head leading to an increased risk of jaundice.

OK, the monsters in the film were not as specific at their torture as the events described above but you can see the analogy, can't you?

The only way to avoid the above is to GHOST. That is to control your adrenalin output so that you do not secrete any of the tell tale pheromones that give away your fear. Easy peasy.

The only way to do this is to learn relaxation techniques outlined in this blog or available on the Kindle in the form of Pain Free Labour books. A relaxed person does not secrete adrenalin. Sorted.

After Earth only got 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, obviously they were not watching it from my slightly mad perspective.

Will Smith will always get a big intact tomato from me, he simply just gets better with age. Mmmmm.