Nearly everyone will hold negative beliefs to some extent about pain, and for many, this will include the pain of labour. The next component of the class will explore some of the ways these negative beliefs can start to be changed into positive attitudes, aimed at helping the woman deal with her labour and birth.
If the women (and their partners or support people) are prepared to modify or change their negative beliefs, the door is then left open to embrace positive attitudes towards the pain of labour. If the labour is seen as a positive, healthy, natural process, it can then be placed into perspective, helping the woman feel like the pain is something she can work with, rather than feeling like a victim of a sensation she must fight to avoid.
Some things that can be achieved by adopting some positive attitudes can include:
Seeing labour pain as a healthy pain
Having realistic goals and outcomes
Alleviating, or being able to work with anxiety
Feeling actively involved and more 'in control'
Seeing labour pain as a healthy pain. Positive attitudes can help nurture the belief that labour pain is a normal 'healthy pain'. They can help the woman to see her labour as purposeful, a 'vehicle that brings the child to her'. The pain can be converted to a tool, actively moving the woman's body through the process of labour, so that her child can be born. The pain then starts to be seen as 'a means to an end'. With this in mind she can start to say 'yes' to her labour.
Positive attitudes can help the woman accept her labour as being natural and 'normal'. It is stressful and it is painful.........but it is normal. It is still OK for the woman to feel frightened and challenged at various times during the labour, but still maintain the view that the labour pain is purposeful and positive.
It is the woman's body that experiences the process of labour. It is her child within that works towards his or her own birth - 'it is a united working relationship'.