You do not always have to have drugs in order to manage pain in labour and get safely through childbirth. Options that can help include the person(s) you choose to have with you (your birthing partner), the positions you adopt, use of water, use of drugs and therapies, and your general feelings of comfort and relaxation. Having information about all of these in advance of your baby`s birth can affect how useful you may find them once your labour begins. As noted above, one factor that is very important in helping you to manage your pain in labour, is coming to terms with the pain that comes with the uterine contractions and trying to see this as a positive pain that will come to an end, in that it is helping your baby through the birth passage and out into the world, rather than a negative pain that occurs when you have an injury or disease. The approaches mentioned in this section are about reducing the pain that you will feel; they are not about taking it away altogether. The only effective way of doing this is with an epidural (see the Informed Choice section Epidural pain relief in labour). The purpose of this leaflet is to give you information on how well each method can do this so that you can make your own choices about what suits you...

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