He may be associate professor in midwifery at Nottingham University, but does Dr Denis Walsh have a point? Should a man who has never experienced the pain of childbirth tell women to be more stoical? The Daily Mail quoted him saying that “A large number of women want to avoid pain, but more should be prepared to withstand it. Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing which has a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby.” He also said that “emerging evidence shows that normal labour and birth prime the bonding areas of the mother’s brain more than Caesarean or pain-free birth.”
Now, what does one make of this? The article doesn’t say what the evidence is, or how they measure the bond between mothers and their children? (Any idea how this affects the bond between father and baby?) The natural hormones, oxytocin and prolactin, produced during labour may initiate a bond between mother and baby in the first hour or two of birth perhaps. But how does natural painful birth help create the bond that develops between mother and child over time. A bond that grows, naturally too, from loving and nurturing parenting.
I wonder how this new report is related to cost-cutting for the NHS?

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