Bearing pain

Pain or suffering brings out one's inner self. One's true colours revealed ; brings out the real you to the world. Such revelation eih... I see this everyday in the labour room ; few screaming and crying , another few talking absolute nonsense . Another group would just be angry and impatient for the baby to be delivered, forcing doctors for a caesarean ..only a small group is calm and sensible about it - relishing the gift from god and taking it as a blessing. A very rare breed indeed..

Labour pain is the most horrendous experience a woman can encounter in her lifetime. Almost all studies of pain perception would put labour pain top of its class. As a man , I don't think I'll be able to experience it myself and i can only imagine. ( Not that i want to lar.. ) Tooth ache pain is classified equal to any trauma pain ; labour pain is ten-fold. heks.. Scary eih..

The wonders of medicine brought epidural as a saviour. Instead of suffering in pain for a minimum of 7 hours - up to 12 hours in first stage of labour ; Epidural brings such relief and smile to the awaiting mother to be. As a professional who holds this responsibility , it is a pleasure to see the mother's "enjoy" their labour. Then again , it depends on one's pain treshold that I see a lot of variance of response to pain. Still , epidural is an elective adjunct , since Adam - billions of humankind were delivered and I cannot recall my own mother having an epidural while delivering me.. ( Guess she was super exhausted that I had to be forcep"ed" out )

Inserting epidural catheter is a jiffy for me , I can even do it blindfolded now, literally speaking. Somehow , ( being me.. ) I spend more time talking to the mothers ; explaining , a bit of counselling and motivation and to the muslim mothers - tazkirah. I find it to be helpful in producing a good labour pain block - hence the labour to progress smoothly and the baby delivered safely. Pain brings down one's morale and I figure that its up to the mother's own personality to bring herself up. A lot needs constant motivation and encouragement ; as the pushing during the second stage can be very exhaustive. I wonder if the mother's attitude would correlate to the child's behaviour and motivation when they grow up ? An interesting topic to make a study out of it...

I used to get angry seeing mother's giving up - begging the doctor to just cut and take the baby out. Over the years , I've suppressed that feeling and instead developed a reverse pyschology method pep talk to the mother ; motivating them to go and bring all the grit in them to be succesful in this small task. Asking them to reflect their determination with of babies certainly helps and asking them to recite verses from Quran could calm them down. I enjoy these moments and I suppose the sole reason why I like my obstetric posting.

And I must tell you , it is a delight to see the mother's delight when I see them to take the catheter off !! Alhamdulillah...