I wholeheartedly agree, Kate!

Hence my rather dogged insistence on sticking to the Turkish term 'sanci' rather
than 'agri' in relation to what you feel in labour! I believe that whenever
someone advocates 'agrisiz dogum' (painless/painfree birth!) they are first
converting 'sanci' to 'agri', and then dispensing the 'magic tool' to get rid of
it!

Best wishes

Sebnem

--- In naturalbirthturkey@yahoogroups.com, Kate Fairleigh <KateRN1@...> wrote:
>
>
> I was just doing some Continuing Education Units for nursing and wandered
across this definition of pain:
>
>
>
> "Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual
or potential tissue damage, or described in terms such as damage" (APS, 1992;
Mersky & Bogduk 1994).
>
>
>
> While we all know that labor and birth hurt, can we really say that it's
associated with "actual or potential tissue damage?" I have to wonder if maybe
there isn't a better word than "pain" that can be used to describe the
sensations associated with childbearing. Ina May calls contractions "rushes,"
Birthing from Within and Hypnobirthing use words that I don't recall at the
moment, and I'm sure that other natural birth advocates have their own
vocabularies. I have to admit that when I first came across these euphemisms, I
thought they were a bit silly. But in light of the above definition, I'm
starting to rethink.
>
>
>
> There's a clear difference between the sensations of a natural childbirth and
that which is manipulated. My first labor was horrific with 18 hours of pitocin
and no pharmacological pain relief. My second labor was 80 hours, much of it in
water, and not what I'd really call painful, except when I was on land (and in
the car). It was intense, breathtaking, powerful, and motivating--but not
painful like my first labor (or I couldn't have done 80 hours of it!). One of
the earliest indicators that we have to complications in labor is true pain,
such as with abruption, rupture, dystocia, etc. But if we are in a state where
pain is blocked by pharmacological methods, such as an epidural, then that
removes one of the most important assessment tools available.
>
>
>
> One of the benchmarks for accreditation for healthcare facilities is the
assessment and treatment of pain. All admission and discharge forms for JCAHO
accredited insitutions must address the patient's pain and how it is treated.
But that really does a disservice when the pain is useful--as in labor. Every
area of medicine has a push towards evidence-based practice, with the glaring
exception of obstetrics. Every time a study is done that finds natural labor to
be most beneficial, some caveat at the end warns that it can't be extrapolated
to the general population or why the results aren't as simple as they appear to
be. But when we have a study that shows the least little bit of significance in
favor of intervention--statistically valid or not--then it's latched onto and
becomes a Sacred Cow.
>
>
>
> Sorry for the diatribe.
>
> Kate
>
>
>
>
> To: naturalbirthturkey@yahoogroups.com
> From: s_susam@...
> Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 08:49:03 +0000
> Subject: [naturalbirthturkey] on epidurals and natural birth
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Looking forward to your comments:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8068889.stm
>
> As for me, I do wonder who sponsored this 'research'!..
>
> Best wishes
>
> Sebnem
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync.
> http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_BR_life_in_synch_052009
>