Why do women experience excruciating pain during childbirth?

Every woman has to go through the process of getting married and having children, which is also a symbol of women's happiness and satisfaction. However, many people are afraid of giving birth, thinking it is too painful. Do you know why mothers need to feel pain during childbirth? Do you know the role of uterine contraction? Today I will introduce you to some knowledge about the benefits of childbirth for women. Friends who are interested, come and have a look.

The first is the lack of scientific understanding of the process of childbirth.

Generally, in the last stages of pregnancy, women's estrogen levels gradually increase, while progesterone levels begin to slowly decrease.

Estrogen can increase the sensitivity of uterine muscles to oxytocin and other substances that stimulate uterine contractions. Combined with the increase in local intrauterine pressure, it prompts the uterus to produce strong contractions.

The second is fear and pain sensitivity.

The fear of mothers is also due to their lack of understanding of the childbirth process. They only believe that childbirth is very painful, even unbearable, based on hearsay, and thus become extremely afraid of childbirth.

Some mothers are usually very sensitive to pain, and they believe the exaggerated descriptions of experienced mothers, and imagine how painful childbirth will be. This is bound to cause great psychological pressure. And this mentality will definitely aggravate the pain during childbirth.

In fact, childbirth is just a physiological process of female growth. When a pregnant woman is about to give birth, the number of nerve sensory fibers that control the uterus in her body has decreased to very few, so in fact, not much pain will be produced.

Objectively speaking, childbirth is painful because certain tissues and organs adjacent to the uterus are involved during the process, causing local pain.

Manual laborers usually have a lot of activity, so their childbirth is smoother and the pain is reduced accordingly. People who do mental work or pregnant women who are less active often experience aggravated pain due to extreme tension and fear.

From this it can be seen that the pain of childbirth varies from person to person.

Why does mother need pain during childbirth?

The pain during childbirth discourages many people who want to be mothers. Many expectant mothers would rather let a sharp blade cut their beautiful "belly" (using anesthetics to relieve the pain) than endure the pain for just a dozen hours during childbirth.

The fear of pain during childbirth has led to the current high cesarean section rate, which has changed the natural way of human reproduction and brought many adverse effects to both mothers and babies in the short and long term.

In fact, the pain during childbirth has made great contributions. For a long time, "it" has been enduring people's misunderstanding of it and silently contributing to the improvement of human health and quality.

When the mother was giving birth, the family members were extremely anxious when they heard her screams of pain. They all looked at the doctor with pleading eyes, hoping that the doctor could use advanced medical technology and magical drugs to relieve the mother's pain.

However, doctors often turn a blind eye to the pain of mothers during childbirth, allowing the pain to torture expectant mothers again and again until the delivery is over.

When doctors see that some pregnant women do not experience severe abdominal pain during childbirth, they often add fuel to the fire and "intensify" the pain of the pregnant women (by dripping oxytocin).

Faced with doctors' indifference to the pain of mothers during childbirth, many mothers and their families wonder: Aren't there many ways to make mothers feel less pain during childbirth? Why are doctors unwilling to use them? Does the birth of a baby have to be accompanied by the mother's pain?

The answer is yes: without the pain of the mother during childbirth, a smart and healthy baby would not be born!

Reasons for pain during labor

1. The baby's life in the mother's womb is like being put in a pocket with a tight rope at the opening of the pocket. This tight rope is the mother's cervix. The cervix and the long vagina are made up of tough connective tissue and muscles. Normally these organs are tightly closed to prevent the baby from slipping out of the pocket during pregnancy.

As the pregnancy is about to end, these hard connective tissues and muscles begin to loosen and soften under the action of labor hormones, so as to facilitate the expansion of the soft birth canal during delivery to facilitate the baby's passage.

To put it simply, the process of childbirth is the process of squeezing the baby out of the mother's uterus and reproductive tract. However, without the force that pushes the baby forward during labor, the baby cannot be delivered. The driving force behind this is mainly the contraction force (pain) of the mother's uterus.

The role of uterine contractility

To promote the opening of the cervix, the baby needs to use his head to push the cervix open until it is large enough to allow his head and body to pass through. This difficult task cannot be accomplished by the baby alone. It can only be accomplished with the help of the mother's pain.

The pain a mother feels during childbirth is caused by the contraction of her uterus, and the contraction of the uterus is helping the baby expand the birth canal and push the baby forward. Without the contraction of the uterus, the baby would not be able to expand the birth canal.

Once the "door" of the birth canal is opened, uterine contractions will prompt the baby to be born into the world as soon as possible. Therefore, mother’s pain is necessary.

2. The baby can only be born through the mother's birth canal, because the mother's birth canal is not smooth and straight, but a curved "tunnel" that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, and slightly upturned. There are several checkpoints in this tunnel.

The width between the two middle barriers is only about 10 centimeters on average, which is the only way for the baby to pass. Because the birth canal is curved and narrow, the baby must perform a series of movements when passing through the "tunnel" in order to reduce the diameter of its head and allow the body to adapt to the shape and size of the tunnel before it can pass through.

This series of actions is what is referred to in the mechanism of labor: engagement, descent, and flexion. Internal rotation, exposure and crowning, extension, reduction, external rotation, and delivery.

However, this series of actions are not completed by the baby himself. The baby does not need to make any movements or efforts when passing through a certain obstacle in the mother's birth canal. Everything is "taken care of" by the combined force of the mother's uterine contraction and the reaction force generated by the mother's birth canal.

If the baby cannot change his position in time, he will be stuck here, and staying here for a long time will threaten his life. The timely change of the baby's posture requires a strong push, which is the mother's uterine contraction force.

Without the mother’s pain during childbirth, a lovely baby would not be born, so the mother’s pain is also necessary.

3. The most important thing is that when the baby is delivered vaginally, its head will inevitably be squeezed by the birth canal and stretched and deformed. But this squeezing is to prepare the baby for the transition from "water life" to "land life". It is very beneficial for the baby to separate from the mother and live independently.

Because of the rhythmic contraction of the uterus, the baby's chest cavity can be compressed and expanded accordingly. It is this rhythmic contraction and relaxation movement that can stimulate the baby's alveolar surfactant (phospholipids) to accelerate the production. This substance can make the baby's alveoli elastic and easy to expand after birth.

Uterine contractions repeatedly squeeze the baby's chest, which helps to squeeze out the alveolar fluid and inhaled amniotic fluid. With the baby's long cry at birth, the alveoli open and begin independent breathing movements, without the lack of alveolar surfactant causing hyaline membrane disease and leading to the death of the newborn.

The compression of the baby's head by the birth canal can also stimulate the release of cerebrolysin, which is beneficial to the baby's intellectual development. Therefore, the benefits that the mother's pain brings to the baby are not achieved through cesarean section.

The mother needs to feel pain for a long time during childbirth

Clinically, we often hear pregnant mothers say: "If I can't give birth in X hours, I will have a cesarean section." This shows that these women do not understand the process of childbirth.

Due to the toughness and twists and turns of the mother's birth canal, the baby's "escape" is very difficult. The baby needs to change positions many times in the mother's birth canal before he can slowly crawl out. This process is slow.

The baby needs time to slowly adjust to the hard part of the mother's bony birth canal. The process of a smooth delivery is the process of mutual adaptation between the mother's labor force, birth canal and the baby's body diameter.

Since it takes a certain amount of time to adapt to each other, long-term pain is necessary. Only after a long period of pain can the door of the mother's birth canal slowly "open" to allow the baby to pass through easily.

Generally speaking, it takes 12 to 16 hours for a first-time mother's baby to pass through the birth canal, while it only takes 8 to 12 hours for a multiparous mother. If the duration and intensity of the pain are too short and too rapid, it may easily cause severe tearing of the mother's birth canal, resulting in massive bleeding, intracranial hemorrhage and birth injuries in the newborn.

If the duration and intensity of the pain are too slow and too weak, it will cause the mother to become tired and weak, prolonging the labor process, increasing the rate of instrumental delivery, and increasing the rate of neonatal asphyxia and neonatal birth injuries. Therefore, normal delivery cannot be completed in a short time.

Pain during childbirth is good for the baby

Some mothers and their families mistakenly believe that cesarean section can save them from pain, will not change their body shape, can ensure the safety of the baby, and that babies born by cesarean section are very smart, etc., so they blindly pursue cesarean section. This is mainly due to the lack of correct understanding of normal childbirth. In fact, the pain during childbirth is more beneficial to mother and child;

The contraction of the uterus during delivery can exercise the fetal lungs, increase surfactant, make the alveoli easier to expand, and reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases after birth.

The contraction of the uterus and the squeezing effect of the birth canal squeeze out the amniotic fluid and mucus in the fetal respiratory tract, greatly reducing the incidence of neonatal asphyxia and neonatal pneumonia.

When the baby passes through the birth canal, the fetal head is squeezed and the head becomes congested, which can increase the excitability of the respiratory center in the brain, which is beneficial for the newborn to quickly establish normal breathing after birth.

The pain of labor causes the lower part of the uterus to become thinner, the upper part to become thicker, and the cervix to expand. The contraction force of the uterus is stronger after delivery, which is beneficial to the discharge of lochia and the recovery of the uterus.

Immunoglobulin G (IgG) can be transferred from the mother to the fetus during natural delivery, and newborns delivered naturally have stronger resistance. The fetus is trained in touch, taste, pain and sense of position in the birth canal, which promotes the development of brain and vestibular function, and is beneficial to future movement and personality.

Vaginal delivery is the normal way of childbirth. There is no childbirth without pain. This truth-like constant scares many women away.

However, the delivery process for each expectant mother varies from person to person. Physical and mental conditions will affect the intensity and duration of labor pain, so even the most experienced doctors cannot give the exact time of the baby's birth.

Although the distance the baby needs to travel inside the mother's body is only about 10 centimeters, every millimeter of progress is achieved through the pain of the mother. Therefore, expectant mothers should correctly understand the significance of pain during childbirth. For the health of the baby, they should not be afraid of pain. Only in this way can they give birth to a smart and healthy baby.