The emotions that a woman feels and her reactions to the pain she is experiencing are very individual and uniquely her own. How she expresses her pain and how others interpret her reactions to the pain can mean very different things for the woman, her partner, support people and her caregiver(s).
Women from all walks of life can respond to labour by staying quiet or by groaning, moaning, rocking, yelling and losing control. These are all normal responses. An individual woman's responses lie within her mind and body, being generated from her innate, inherited knowledge of how to give birth to her children.
Women in labour are somewhere in their lives that they have never been before, even in subsequent labours it can be very different. Labour is painful for most women and with this experience comes vulnerability, anxiety, stress, inner strength and resources that they may never have experienced or called upon before.
Most women will normally display varying levels of distress. These responses are expected reactions to labour. A woman will often show these signs, but actually feel she is coping with the labour.
The following stories are examples of some emotional reactions that a woman can experience.
Siobhan's story