Women's expectations and experiences with labour pain in medical and midwifery models of birth in the United States

Abstract

Background: This research focuses on how women understand and experience labour as related to two competing views of childbirth pain. The biomedical view is that labour pain is abnormal and anaesthesia/analgesia use is encouraged to relieve the pain. The midwifery view is that pain is a normal part of labour that should be worked with instead of against.

Aims: To determine differences in the preparation for and experiences with labour pain by women choosing midwives versus obstetricians.

Methods: Prenatal and postpartum in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 80 women in Florida (United States): 40 who had chosen an obstetrician and 40 who had chosen a licensed midwife as their birth practitioner.

Findings: Women in both groups were concerned with the pain of childbirth before and after their labour experiences. Women choosing midwives discussed preparing for pain through various non-pharmaceutical coping methods, while women choosing physicians discussed pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical pain relief.

Conclusions: Equal numbers of women expressed concerns with childbirth pain during the prenatal interviews, while more women choosing doctors spoke about pain after their births. Women had negative experiences when their planned pain relief method, either natural or medical, did not occur. The quandary facing women when it comes to labour pain relief is not choosing what they desire, but rather preparing themselves for the possibility that they may have to accept alternatives to their original preferences.

Keywords: Childbirth; Labour pain; Midwifery; Obstetrics; Qualitative research.