Just Take the Damned Drugs

I've just been listening to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 while eating my lunch and I've been compelled to come back to the computer for a rant.

It was a discussion about the pros and cons of taking pain relief while giving birth and the bit I caught seemed to almost exclusively feature the "hair shirt" brigade.

The big natural birth argument seems to revolve around the old adage that childbirth is the most natural thing in the world and that women have been doing it for thousands of years. Well, yes, they have but I just don't get the logic - the same could be said about periods but I can't imagine anyone going without the modern conveniences of sanitary wear just because that's how it was done in days gone by.

Having gone through two births I feel I've got some inside information about the subject. Much as we'd all love to see our babies sliding gracefully into the world after a few mild labour pains and a couple of pushes, the reality for most people is a very different experience. I personally found the whole thing pretty horrific. Having been lulled into the whole natural birth philosophy during my first pregnancy I was determined to have a water birth with no intervention. The best laid plans and all that... After 36 hours of excruciating agony, someone realised the baby was lying back-to-back, her head was stuck and I'd have to have a forceps delivery. Fancy trying that without any pain relief? Neither did I.

No one is denying that childbirth is natural but one could argue the same about kidney stones or appendicitis and you wouldn't dream of suffering either ailment without some knockout pain relief. There's definitely a school of thought that maintains you've had a much more real and connecting experience if you've given birth naturally, with an almost corporate boardroom one-upmanship (or should that be one-up'woman'ship) amongst those who've done it all with just one slug of gas and air and a couple of pulses of a Tens machine. But why should those of us who opt for a little pain relief be made to feel as if we've somehow cheated?

I've got nothing but admiration for women who do manage to give birth without the aid of drugs but it just isn't an option for everyone. After two days of full-on labour, with a 91/2lb baby that was stuck, I took every damned drug that was offered to me.