For Katrina Caslake, 44, giving birth was not the terrifying, painful ordeal most women experience. Far from it. The midwife, from Wallington, South London, says she found it blissful, even orgasmic.

“I found giving birth very sensual,” says Caslake, who didn’t take painkillers for the birth of her two sons, Aaron, 18, and Tomas, 17. “All my erogenous zones were stimulated. And I had a definite climax. I was doing the most feminine thing a woman can do and it felt fantastic.”

It was her “pleasurable experience” that led her to train as a midwife. “I knew I wasn’t unique,” says Caslake, who helps to run Yours Maternally, an independent midwifery service. “By encouraging women to trust and relax in their bodies during birth, I can help them to experience less painful, more pleasurable births.”

It’s an approach that’s also encouraged at the Birth Centre, in South London, where Nathalie Mottershead, a midwife, encourages sensual birth. “If couples are willing, nipple and clitoral massage can be used to bring on labour contractions, open the cervix and vagina and help with pain relief,” she says. “We work closely with women so that they can give birth at home, in intimate surroundings. If mothers-to-be are open to feeling sexy, labour can be pleasurable, not painful, and it sometimes builds up to a climax at birth.”

It’s not as if these techniques are isolated or rare. “If a woman is comfortable enough to do nipple or clitoral stimulation during birth, it’s a useful trick for pain relief and inducing labour,” says Andrya Prescott, of the Independent Midwives Association.

More women, it seems, get turned on by birth than you’d think. When Ina May Gaskin, a US midwife, conducted a poll of 151 women, 32 reported having at least one orgasmic birth.

It almost sounds too good to be true: a touchy-feely labour followed by an earth-shattering orgasm at the moment of birth. Unfortunately, this is very far removed from most women’s description of childbirth.

One big hitch is that, as with any sexual activity, the amount of pleasure gained is closely related to the degree of relaxation, trust and safety that a woman feels. Most women anticipate with dread the “birth ordeal”, a state of mind that will make muscles contract and adrenalin levels rise before labour even begins. And then, most women can feel sexy only in intimate surroundings, in front of people they know well. Hospitals and doctors don’t really do the trick.

“Adrenalin inhibits sex drive and labour contractions,” Prescott says. “You become tense and are more prone to feeling pain. It’s why women can have trouble with labour and birth at hospital.” Part of the problem it seems is the way that sexuality in childbirth has been denied.

In her book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (Bantam, £9.99), Gaskin points out that doctors had to play down female sexuality for medical men to be admitted to the birth chambers of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. This “denial” was later institutionalised when hospital births became routine.

Even today, it’s a taboo subject. “Lots of women would worry that they’d be seen as abnormal or deviant if they admitted to feeling sexual at birth,” says Carolyn Cowan, a yoga teacher and doula (birth assistant), based in South London, who had an ecstatic birth. “It’s something that lots of women feel too ashamed to talk about,” she adds.

But the tide is clearly turning. A growing number of obstetricians and midwives are at pains to point out what seems obvious, yet has been somehow forgotten, that since sex leads to pregnancy and birth, they are deeply linked.

“When you look at sex, birth and lactation, the same hormones are involved,” says Michel Odent, the obstetrician who pioneered the use of birthing pools in the 1970s. “It seems obvious that childbirth is a part of a woman’s sexuality.”

Many parents-to-be, for example, find that making love and nipple stimulation are one of the best ways to get labour going. That’s because sexual arousal releases oxytocin, a love and bonding hormone, that triggers orgasmic and labour contractions in the uterus. Conveniently, this hormone is an endorphin, meaning that it has an opiate-like effect, inducing pleasure while acting as an effective painkiller.

Other hormones play a vital role, too. One substance called relaxin, released in semen, helps to soften the cervix and lengthen the pelvic ligaments, allowing for easier passage of the baby. At this point, fathers-to-be might be interested to know that relaxin is ten times more effective when administered orally.

So can women realistically expect to achieve the ultimate orgasm? “Most childbirth professionals are probably aware that an orgasm can take place during delivery but generally don’t mention it,” says Mottershead. “It happens when a woman feels relaxed and safe; it’s spontaneous.”“The very pressure of wanting it can stop it,” says Caslake. “And you wouldn’t want mothers feeling less of a woman because they haven’t experienced a birth orgasm; that’s a lot to ask.”

The love hormone

For more information: www.michelodent.com; www.unassistedchildbirth.com; www.birthcentre.com (020-7820 6661); www.independentmidwives.org.uk or www.mooncycles.co.uk (020-7701 3845).
To contact Yours Maternally, 020-8401 9501 or e-mail enquiries@yoursmaternally.co.uk