WE ALL know that childbirth is painful. But should it be terrifying, too? Research out this week shows that 78 per cent of mums found the experience frightening, with more than half saying that it was “far more shocking than they thought”.

What is really worrying is that it seems to be the circumstances of the birth, as much as the birth itself, which women find upsetting. In the survey of 3,000 women, for the www.Motherandbabymagazine.com, published this week, 42 per cent were not allowed to move around during labour, two thirds were strapped to a monitor for most of the time, and mums-to-be were left without supervision for an average of an hour and 20 minutes during their labour. Only half said that their nurses were compassionate.

What’s going on here?

The answer lies in the statistic that 96 per cent of women give birth in hospital. The fact is that birth has been pushed away from our society; out of sight and mind until it happens to you. Unlike previous ages, where the nitty-gritty of birth was apparent in every home through the experiences of friends and relatives, it is now made all the more frightening by being mysteriously medicalised in hospitals.

The expectations we have are often unrealistic, gained from manuals, glossy magazines and our consumer ethos, which suggests that we can have whatever we want. Then, what we actually get in hospitals is all too obviously mechanistic and impersonal.

The hospital sausage machine affects not only women, but also the job satisfaction of the midwives who care for them. NHS managers say that they are unable to provide time and personal care because there are not enough midwives to go around. But until NHS systems allow mothers to be treated as people rather than patients, it is difficult to see how the midwifery profession is going to attract the 10,000 new recruits that the Royal College of Midwives says are needed to fill current gaps. It claims that 5,000 midwives have left the profesion in the past three years.

What midwives, like natural birth campaigners, want is not some idealised vision of home births on beanbags for everyone. Many women prefer the security that hospitals can bring.

They are simply saying that when it comes to facing one of life’s most important and gruelling acts, feeling safe, knowing what’s going to happen to you, and being surrounded by people you trust make an enormous difference. The thousands of women interviewed for www.motherandbabymagazine.com were deprived of those things.

OLD ONES ARE THE BEST

IN A week when public health experts issued a warning that flu-like illnesses in England were about to peak, a new survey shows that the most traditional of home cold remedies — honey and lemon in water — is still the most popular. With good reason, says Professor Ron Eccles, of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University: it’s as good as any over-the-counter preparation for coughs and sore throats. “It’s actually the syrup in the medicines that has the effect, not the active ingredients,” he says. “Like syrup, lemon and honey triggers salivation and secretions in the respiratory tract. This lubricates and soothes a sore throat or cough. The secretions also trap viruses and bacteria.”

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