Sexually unihibited = easier childbirth? - Page 2

[calpurnia]

Originally Posted by Romana9+2

And I have to say that I'm really tired of hearing lots of things that end up turning around at some point, to where someone is saying to me, "Are you sure you didn't have difficult/hard/unenjoyable births because you're just sexually inhibited, even though you don't think you are? Perhaps it's because you have subliminal fears you're not aware of. Or, maybe you have sexual problems you haven't resolved. Hmm, have you considered that maybe you really were killed as a child in a past life and therefore aren't open to the idea of giving birth yourself?" (yes, I made that last one up) ARRRRRRGH.

I understand you aren't intending this this way, but sooooo often this kind of thing just gets turned right around on a woman who has an inexplicably hard or difficult labor, as if it has to all be in her head or some sort of emotional problem or something. Very frustrating.

i totally agree. in fact, i gave up reading the birth forums for a while because i was so fed up of this attitude, like there's something i did wrong that meant my homebirth failed & ultimately required intervention.

fwiw, i had a similar theory before giving birth, but my experience didn't back it up. i am definitely uninhibited sexually, at ease with my body & its power & being in it, was uninhibited during labour, & still ending up having a long & difficult labour.

[Robinna]

I don't know. I had fast, intense labours, but I'm not an especially sexual person; mind you, I'm not at all inhibited either I just don't have much of a sex drive. I'm not at all prudish, I'm just too busy & tired to bother with sex. I do think that how generally inhibited (or not) you are might well have an influence, but I don't think that it would be especially about being *sexually* uninhibited. I think that perhaps a person who finds it easy to open up generally, is more likely to find it easy to open up during labour. But there are so many other factors that play into labour.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by gemasita

I have this theory that if someone is sexually unihibited (not permiscuous but comfortable saying what they want/need in bed) that maybe they will have an easier childbirth because they are unihibited about saying what they need in labor and are not self-consious about doing what they need to do/making noise/etc. I am just wondering if any birth professionals or anyone else has any experience with this or would say this is true or not true. I can't say I've seen evidence of this but it seems to make sense in theory.

Well.....my personal experience would indicate otherwise. But it's a good theory. I'm uninhibited in bed and during my ds's birth I said what I needed and nobody listened to me. My ds and I both were clinically dead before it was all over and the UAV doc injured us both with forceps. I did the whole out of body experience and saw them working on me and my ds. Later I got to have surgery to put things back in place. :

[cottonwood]

Originally Posted by Romana9+2

I think birth and sex are too wrapped up in their separate containers in our society for all but a subset of women to see birth as sexual in any way, or experience it that way. I will say, though, that active labor with #1 felt like sex with contractions for me and I found it enjoyable even though the contractions were painful. I had a pretty darn good time until transition. So I definitely see (and felt) the parallels there; I just don't think that they really go together on a large scale because our culture has them so separated.

You put this well.

I get annoyed too by the implications that if you had a difficult/painful birth, well, it's because something's wrong with you! Either you were fearful, or you're sexually frustrated, or you're a prima donna, or you're a wimp, or you didn't work on relaxing enough, yadda yadda yadda. On the other hand I get equally irritated when the (rightful) backlash against that takes the form of "well, therefore none of it is true for anyone, and it's all just luck of the draw."

Birth is such a complex and individual thing, you just can't make absolute and universal judgments. But there is such a thing as cause and effect.

But getting back to the OP, what she was specifically asking was whether un/inhibition in sex translates to un/inhibition in labor and whether it affects labor and how it is experienced. First part of that: maybe, but not necessarily, depending on a lot of factors. Second part of that: logically, of course it does. If you're inhibited, you're tense, and that's going to have an affect on any hormonal process. It doesn't follow though that lack of inhibition means that a labor will be easy, or that inhibition means that it will be hard. It's all relative, and it depends on what you've started with.

So to answer the question personally: I'm uninhibited in sex with my partner. I was VERY self-conscious and inhibited in birth the first couple of time because, um, I was being watched by people I'm not normally intimate with. Third and fourth births were more private, and I felt much more able to approach the labor in a primal way, and that did make a huge difference in how I experienced it, including sexually, and made certain aspects easier. All my labors were still painful, though, and none of them were what I would call easy.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by fourlittlebirds

So to answer the question personally: I'm uninhibited in sex with my partner. I was VERY self-conscious and inhibited in birth the first couple of time because, um, I was being watched by people I'm not normally intimate with. Third and fourth births were more private, and I felt much more able to approach the labor in a primal way, and that did make a huge difference in how I experienced it, including sexually, and made certain aspects easier. All my labors were still painful, though, and none of them were what I would call easy.

That's a good point.

Plus, in my case, I was terrified. I had horrible doctors and had no clue how things worked because I trusted them to know what to do, and they didn't. I was completely clueless about how it worked and discovered MDC way too late. I had enough sense to toss the what to expect when you're expecting book across the room early in my pregnancy, but other than that, I knew nothing.

The next day when it was all over, I really knew they had no clue either when I kept fainting and finally they gave me 2 or 3 units of blood (I can't remember if they switched the bags once or twice) while the nurses were whispering amongst themselves. I'm guessing they were wondering like my mother I were, why it wasn't done sooner. :

I honestly cannot see how a home birth could have been any more dangerous or painful. And from everything I've read on MDC, it's the instructions they gave me to push that caused a lot of my problems in the first place.

[JennTheMomma]

I have no problem stating what I want in any situation, in bed with DH, during labor and birth, etc. I had a 27 hour labor that was very intense and painful from the start, and had trouble dialation. I also got dehydrated, but that was my own fault by not drinking or eating after a certain point. I didn't have a tramautic birth, but it wasn't easy at all.

[Arwyn]

I think how one approaches life (including sex and pain) is similar to how they approach birth, but not that it influences what birth is actually like for them in terms of "easy" or "hard". People who go with the flow and breathe through pain and feel comfortable in their bodies often find it easier to deal with labor than those who don't, but it doesn't determine what they have to deal with, if you know what I mean. It affects the how, not the what, and it's not entirely predictive, just correlative.

But I have a migraine, so I'm not sure I'm expressing myself well.

[bri276]

very interesting discussion. I would like to say that I think it's actually more harmful than helpful when the message is "If you are uninhibited/centered/comfortable/educated/natural etc....you will have an easy birth." tack on "go to a chiro/acupuncturist/midwife/no midwife" or "at home/in the water/trying different positions", it's all the same message- "If you had a painful, traumatic labor or birth or otherwise didn't have the ideal birth, it was somehow because you didn't know enough or do enough to make the circumstances perfect". Except, that's not true, and the only reason anyone needs to believe it is because they can't or don't want to handle the truth that sometimes labor and birth are out of control, painful, messy and traumatic experiences even when there were no interventions and mom did nothing wrong. Even normal births of normal, well positioned babies. Then, it means it might happen to them someday. That doesn't mean various factors don't affect the experience- of COURSE. Just that there are zero guarantees when it comes to pain or difficulty of childbirth, IMO.

(OP- I am NOT saying you meant that at all!)

[BMG580]

Originally Posted by Romana9+2

I was completely uninhibited in asking for and doing what I needed during labor, and am sexually uninhibited, but did not have easier births (whatever that means in context). I had two medically uncomplicated but long(ish, anyway), very hard and painful births.

And I have to say that I'm really tired of hearing lots of things that end up turning around at some point, to where someone is saying to me, "Are you sure you didn't have difficult/hard/unenjoyable births because you're just sexually inhibited, even though you don't think you are? Perhaps it's because you have subliminal fears you're not aware of. Or, maybe you have sexual problems you haven't resolved. Hmm, have you considered that maybe you really were killed as a child in a past life and therefore aren't open to the idea of giving birth yourself?" (yes, I made that last one up) ARRRRRRGH.

I understand you aren't intending this this way, but sooooo often this kind of thing just gets turned right around on a woman who has an inexplicably hard or difficult labor, as if it has to all be in her head or some sort of emotional problem or something. Very frustrating.

I had two posterior babies, two killer back labors and being uninhibited sexually wouldn't magically make my babies face the usual way or descend any faster or make my back labor less painful.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions out there that if you just think positively, embrace labor and the experience that it is going to be beautiful and magical. Well, for me it hurt like hell. And I certainly didn't care that I was naked, sounded like a sick cow and was in front of a few people that I didn't know. Just because the vaginal area is used for both activities has no bearing on performance in either function. That is like saying that you are a great cook because you really like to eat. The two have little to do with each other!