Psychological Aspects of Pain in Childbirth

Some of the most important causal factors of pain are cultural. Margaret Mead (1975) found that women will give birth in the same manner as the other women in the culture in which they were raised, regardless of their ethnic or genetic backgrounds. This means that childbirth is at least partly a learned behavior, not an instinctual one. This conclusion has important implications for Western women who, despite the fact that 95% of all births are completely normal, are consistently subjected to media images of the agony of childbirth, horror stories (some true, some not) from other women, and the underlying Christian tenet that childbirth was ordained by God to be painful (Bean, 1972).

Natural childbirth proponents, on the other hand, argue that childbirth is neither inevitably nor unendurably painful in a normal birth. Therefore, a great deal of the pain perceived and reported by women in labor is thought to be due to cultural conditioning which teaches women to expect pain and to

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t pain, after all, is the body's reaction to a stimulus it recognizes as damaging, but it can mistakenly respond to an unfamiliar or intense but not inherently damaging stimulus (such as a uterine contraction) in the same way. It is this sort of stimulus interpretation which can be modified through education. Second, Lamaze taught the relaxation of all uninvolved muscles, using techniques of progressive and selective muscle relaxation. Third, he called for the use of a professional labor coach or monitrice to assist the woman during labor, although now the husband is often trained to perform this function. Fourth, he taught various stretching and strengthening techniques to aid in childbirth. Fifth, and most importantly, he prescribed an "active, directive psychological analgesia which is aimed at preventing pain as well as modifying the perception of pain. It is often said that psychoprophylaxis gives the woman something to do besides tense her muscles."(Bean, 972, p.50) These techniques include visual focussing, effleurage (light massage of the abdomen), chest breathing, accelerated breathing, panting, and rhythmic breathing (Chabon, 1966). In simple terms, psychoprophylaxis seeks to replace the brain's negative interp
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