It’s good for women to undergo labour pain: Professor Denis Walsh

The medical chief Dr. Denis Walsh asserted on the need to take the help of yoga, birthing pools and hypnosis, to strengthen the bond between the child and the mother. Walsh said that "it's beneficial for women to suffer the labour pain of a natural birth."

Meanwhile, other experts have reacted strongly to the views of United Kingdom’s renowned midwives. The experts say that Dr. Walsh has gone a bit too far in exaggerating the risks associated with epidural drugs. Sally Russell of the Netmums website refuted claims by Dr. Walsh as 'an absolute rubbish'.

Women try to avoid labour pain
An increasing number of pregnant women try avoiding labour pain caused due to natural birth, by taking pain-killers and injections, to get relief from the pain.

Latest statistics reveal that there has been an increase in the women-in-labour receiving epidural or spinal anesthesia. In 2007-08, nearly 33 percent women opted for pain-relieving and spinal anaethetising including injections to ease the pain as compared to 17 percent women in 1989-90.

“A large number of women want to avoid pain. Some just don't fancy the pain [of childbirth]. More women should be prepared to withstand pain. Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby,” stated Dr. Walsh.

Doctors, media behind increased use of epidurals
While asserting on the fact that labour pain is quite natural and a healthy way for child birth, Dr. Walsh blamed media including films and television for portraying labour as a highly medicalised process. He also asked the maternity units to forego pain-relieving medicines and instead ask women to go for body message, yoga, hydrotherapy and hypnosis to ease the labour pain during child birth.

Walsh maintained that women in the west had never been afraid of giving birth to a child in a natural way.

He also put the blame on physicians who are increasingly providing epidural injections to women-in-labour which could lead to serious medical complications during first and second stages of labour. He said nearly 20 percent of pain-relieving drugs were being provided to women unnecessarily by the NHS (National Health Service).

Moreover, epidurals could also lead to a decline in the rates of breast-feeding for the new born as normal labour increases the bonding between the mother and the baby. “Emerging evidence shows that normal labour and birth prime the bonding areas of the mother’s brain more than Caesarean or pain-free birth,” Dr. Walsh maintained.

Dr. Walsh’s article for Evidence Based Midwifery is published by the Royal College of Midwives.