"Enjoy your Labor" by Gilbert Grant is GREAT!

[Julie Doula]

FM, which country did you give birth in?

Sheesh, if you're talking about USA, that's a totally different ball game. Deep breaths. Don't even get me started!

As far as stats concerning women's experience of birth, a huge flaw in Australian services is that there is no systematic collection, collation and analysis of feedback from the consumers of maternity services at all. QANTAS and McDonalds do this more that obstetric services do. Unlike New Zealand, where the Birth Review is mandatory. So, we're told what's good for us. We have no voice to assert what WE think we want and need. Hundreds of submission to the Maternity Review have been utterly disregarded because Pesce and Mourik et al get to dictate what Australian birthers want.

I'd like to see questionnaires like this Birth Review offered to all consumers of maternity services in Australia.

Personally, I would hope that only a minority of women would request an epidural purely because they feel the contractions are painful. To me, that would be like running or cycling and expecting to feel no sensations. That comes back to my view that it's not epidurals that have a bad rap, it's normal birth: society has distorted what normal birth is, and attached so much fear to normal processes, that fear adds much pain to the normal pain of a normally progressing labour. Every possible environmental factor birthing women need to enhance the optimal flow of their natural endorphins is stripped from them in the average obstetric environment. Hence, they need epidurals more. FM, if midwives try to support women more and discourage them from getting an epidural, they are doing the right thing, as a general rule. That's what they should be doing. However, if your birth plan is, I want my epidural in by 3 cm done my research thanks, weighed the pros and cons and that's my decision, and that's written in your birth plan, I would imagine you'd have a pretty good chance of getting that respected.

My midwife mother once supported a woman in labour who had experienced sexual abuse. The trauma was triggered during labour. She ended up with three midwives sitting with her on her bed, asking, "What do you need? How can we help?" She said "I need to not feel anything down there." They organised an epidural for her, and she was able to give birth to her baby vaginally. This is an example not just of a success story of epidural technology, but of emotional support and personalised care also.