why we feel pain in labor and pain relief methods

[blue daisy]

I have talked about what reduces pain/discomfort/intensity etc of labor

In natural labor your oxytocin and endorpin levels increase together, meaning that as your surges increase in their intensity and frequency that your natural pain relief endorphins increases to continue to allow you to be comfortable and in control

how about what increases your pain

this is a long list if I miss any feel free to add your thoughts

being told that labor and birth will hurt
being told horrid birth stories by friends and famlilies increasing your fear
our societies perception of what birth should be
any form of medical induction
vaginal exams at any stage of labor
hastening your labor artificially with rupturing your membranes and drip
not being able to move about freely in labor and birth
a frightened and unsupported birth partner
medical care providers...midwives of doctors
medical birth

all of these things increase your fear, reducing you oxytocin and endorphin levels
and also increase your liklihood of an instrumental delivery of c/s

have i missed anything?
x

[meow]

Perhaps these things may increase your fear... in my case for example my midwife and other's horror stories didn't make me fearful.

[Smoke Jaguar]

I think she's saying they're all contributors, rather than sure-thing ingredients.
Horror-stories just made me mad cos the people telling me them knew what I was going for ('zen'!) and tried to ram them down my throat anyway, as if they were helping...not like they helped prepare me for what I wanted, or even believed I'd achieve the birth we wanted - I guess they thought it was their civic duty because of what they were regaled with when pg

[blue daisy]

Perhaps these things may increase your fear

your absolutely right ren

but anything that increases your fear increases your pain, or perception of pain

x

[meow]

Good-o... just wanted to make the distinction between will and may so that people don't become fearful of things in themselves for no reason IYKWIM

[Smoke Jaguar]

Suffice to say that there is a lot of evidence to implicate these things (I'm mainly talking about the interventions) in painful, medicalised births and their presence/incidence are statistically related to such births. I think we all agree that you are at a statistically more significant risk in these cases, not to say it happens in all cases where these conditions exist.

[meow]

I completely agree. I'm very glad I didn't have a medicalised pregnancy or birth for that reason.