Question: does labour hurt? and why?

Gemma Sharp answered on 17 Jun 2011:

I’ve never been in labour, but I think it’s fair to say it hurts a lot. Some women say it’s the most painful thing you’re ever likely to experience. A lot of women say they forgot how painful it was as soon as it was over… I guess that’s why women go on to have more than one baby. If it was way too painful we’d all be only children!

One of the reasons labour hurts is that the muscle layer of the uterus is contracting hard and relaxing over and over again. If you imagine really tensing a muscle as hard as you can repeatedly for hours then that would hurt right? As labour goes on, the contractions happen more often and last longer, so it starts to really hurt. The pressure from the baby’s head will also hurt. The uterus is basically pushing it out of a small opening. Although the cervix can stretch and diilate to make room, it’s bound to still hurt!

WHY labour hurts is an interesting question I’ve never really considered before. Since women have to go through it to give birth to a child naturally, you’d think the body might go easy on them and numb the pain somehow… Unfortunately it doesn’t, but I’m not sure why. I guess because we keep on having babies despite the pain, it hasn’t had a chance to evolve to be less painful!

Don’t worry though, women are strong, and in most cases they’re able to cope with the pain (and doctors can also give them drugs to help if it gets too much!).