Self-Confidence Can Make Childbirth Less Painful NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who are confident in their ability to cope with the pain of childbirth may have an easier time during labor and delivery, a recent study reveals.
According to the survey of 280 women who were pregnant for the first time and in their third trimester, a woman may believe that breathing and relaxation techniques can reduce the pain of labor but be incapable of using those techniques herself. These women were found to approach labor and delivery with more fear than women who were self-confident.
Women who feared childbirth the most tended to have lower self-esteem than their more confident peers. In particular, fearful women worried about losing control of their behavior during delivery and enduring painful contractions. They were more likely to believe that doctors and nurses had more control over their health than they did.
Women who were less afraid were more confident in their ability to cope with labor and delivery, the study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology reports.
``Most women fear childbirth to some extent,'' Nancy K. Lowe, the study's author, said in a prepared statement. ``But when a woman has high fear and low self-confidence, she starts to doubt her ability to give birth.''
Lowe, an associate professor of nursing at Ohio State University in Columbus, blames the fear surrounding childbirth on Western medicine, which she says values ``medical management'' over ``the physiologic workings of the woman's own body.''
She points to the high rate of Cesarean section deliveries in the US, and suggests that some doctors think women should even be able to request the procedure.
``Western women are constantly bombarded with messages that undermine both their beliefs in the ability of their bodies to give birth successfully and their beliefs in their personal ability to exercise control over their birth experience,'' Lowe writes.
``Interventions aimed at increasing self-efficacy may help to decrease fears of childbirth,'' she adds.
Lowe suggests that counseling might help some women overcome their fears.
SOURCE: Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology 2000;21:219-
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