Ouch: Study Says Childbirth Not As Painful As Women Claim
Feel free to disagree. Just don't rip me to shreds in the comments section because I'm a man -- I'm only regurgitating the findings of this study that says giving birth may not actually be as painful as women claim. Whoa!
Researchers asked 320 women to rate the level of their pain (using a 100 point scale) every 20 minutes during labor. The same moms were then asked to evaluate their labor pain two days after giving birth, and again two months later.
The researches found that the majority of participants rated their pain higher after-the-fact than they did while they were in labor -- their recollection of pain during childbirth averaged higher than their actual pain measurements during the birth process.
The study says humans tend to remember experiences based on "peak point" and "end point" memories. It's a process known as "peak-end bias," and researchers concluded that the bias can be applied to pain recollection during childbirth.
The study, which was actually conducted to determine if epidurals are helpful to moms, claims that women who have an epidural tend to feel less pain during the final stages of childbirth, and therefore tend to remember the experience more favorably when asked to describe their pain levels in the days and months following labor.
"In practical terms, these results suggest that epidural analgesia is not only beneficial during childbirth itself but also effective in modulating memory of it," the researchers write.
Don't shoot the messenger! And besides, I decided to share this study with you because it gave me the perfect excuse to show you pictures of our beautiful little granddaughter, Charleigh! :)
- George McIntyre
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