Who Do I Believe?

It is impossible to predict in advance just how painful labour will be. Some women kind that it is less painful than they anticipated; others, that it is much worse. Those who have already been through labour will have their own experience to guide them. Naturally, past experience of pain influences one's outlook towards the future. While some women who have had more than one confinement find that their experience of pain was similar for each labour, it is not uncommon for them to say that each of their labours felt different. Although subsequent labours tend to be easier and quicker, this is by no means always the case. In other words, previous experience is not always a good guide for what will happen in the future.

Women who are expecting their first child will inevitably have some preconceptions and expectations. This is perfectly natural for they will have already obtained views and opinions from various sources: relatives and friends, television, books and magazines. All of these sources of information can, of course, be helpful: but they can also be misleading or inaccurate. Some people give an over-glossy view about childbirth while others seem to concentrate only on things that can go wrong! We all know of friends who dwell on the gloomy side of life and who relish any opportunity to recount how ghastly everything to do with childbirth really is. (These sorts of friends we can well do without.) The fact is that for some women childbirth will be a 'breeze'; for others it will be pretty awful. For most women however, it will be somewhere in between these two extremes.

In short, everyone's experience of childbirth will be different. Listen, therefore, to other women's experiences with a pinch of salt - especially those so-called 'friends' who love to exaggerate! Seek advice from people whom you feel you can trust and who know what they are talking about.