Asians suffer less during childbirth

(HealthDay News) -- Asian women experience less labour pain than other women, say U.S. researchers.
“Labour progress and pain are influenced by many different factors but are difficult to study because conditions during labour are continually changing,” Dr. Pamela Flood, of the anesthesia department at Columbia University, said in a news release from the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
“We created mathematical models to assess labour progression and pain in 500 women having their first babies,” Flood explained. “This technique has the benefit of allowing researchers to assess the labour experience for individual women, in addition to the responses of a group as is seen in this study. Ideally, in the future we can use this model to predict when and if a woman will be able to deliver vaginally.”
The researchers studied 100 sequential deliveries from each of five ethnic groups -- Asian, Hispanic, black, white and other -- and found significant associations between ethnicity, labour progress and labour pain.
Asian women had slower active labour and reported less pain than women of other ethnicities. The researchers also found that women who weighed more generally had slower active labour.
The study is in the November issue of Anesthesiology.
“The ability to predict labour pain would be helpful to assist in the development of specific coping mechanisms during labour, helping each woman better know what to expect,” Flood said. “More accurate expectations about labour pain and progress will help new mothers and their doctors to plan their treatment.”