Alicia VandeVusse
ASA Submission
“A Baby Story as a Source of Information about Childbirth: The Messages and Their Implications”
uncomfortable, so we’ll see how long I can hold out before I start begging for mercy, for a little
pain relief.” Another episode is dominated by the birthing woman’s attempt to pinpoint the right
moment to ask for her epidural. Her concern is driven by the memory of her first birth, during
which she was induced and then experienced such strong contractions that she could not wait the
time it would have taken an anesthesiologist to arrive to administer an epidural and thus received
a less effective pain reliever. She asks her doctor, “If I start to feel pain, should I ask for the
epidural? It’s up to me? … Would you suggest waiting or do you think whenever I feel really
painful I should get it?” (Episode 31). She goes on to say, “I think I should order the epidural…
I’m afraid if I don’t, then I’m gonna be in so much pain.”
The fear of pain and one’s ability to endure it is the most common topic in the episodes
overall, and the underlying message of many episodes that touch on it is that epidurals are an
incredibly effective method to eliminate the entire issue. This theme is encapsulated in this brief
interchange between doctor and laboring woman from episode 47:
Doctor: Hi! What’s better – epidural, without epidural?
Woman: With epidural.
Doctor: Epidural is better, right?
Woman: Yep.
Right after receiving her epidural, the woman says to the anesthesiologist, “I feel great. I feel like
a totally different person.” In the cases where women are attended by physicians and state a
clear preference for an epidural-free experience, much of the discussion about it is speculation as
to whether the woman will achieve her goal. In episode 27, for example, the doctor states, “This
time around, she’s gonna try to have a birth without an epidural. Hopefully she can do it.”
Later, her husband tells the camera (out of earshot of his laboring wife), “She probably will have
an epidural. I’m going to guess that.” The emphasis is not on helping the woman through the
labor pains in alternative ways, as it often is in the midwife-attended births, but rather on the lack
17
Convention