Yes, there is such a thing as pleasurable childbirth.

In The Pleasures of Childbirth, Ina May Gaskin explores the child birthing experience of women from a worldly perspective. In doing so she challenges the Western assumed notion that child birthing is a painful duty placed on woman kind. She explores various cultures and discovers that for many women childbirth is not only painless but also pleasurable.
As a mother of four and acclaimed midwife, a major strength of Gaskin’s argument lies in her personal experience. Her reputation as an acclaimed midwife with extensive knowledge in her field also supports her belief in pain free labors and births. She further validates that argument with her global research of women and their birthing experience.
Gaskin’s weakness in this piece lies in the ethnocentric perspective with which she views the foreign women of her research. Her use of words like “uncivilized” to describe these non Western women creates a dichotomy between Eastern and Western women. In this dichotomy Western mothers are over exposed to medications that other cultures believe to be unnecessary and therefore these mothers can not enjoy a painless childbirth. On the other side of this dichotomy their “uncivilized” counterparts have these painless births due to their lack of education and technology. In relation to childbirth this differentiation appears to be complimenting to these foreign women that are having pleasurable births, but what about the rest of their so called uncivilized lives outside of their birthing experience? A reader can’t help but wonder what Gaskin is implying about the lives of these women by the use of her ethnocentric language.
The article definitely sheds light on the amazing ability of social construction in relation to all aspects of sexuality including even procreation. Social construction is the ability that certain agents of society have to make an idea appear to be natural, normal and obvious to those who accept it but is actually an invention or artifact of a particular culture and or society. Western social construction of pregnancy and childbirth are drastically opposite to most Eastern societies. Women’s ability to give life has always been a power that has intimidated many men. In many Western societies fear has been used to construct a fearful idea of childbirth. The result of that is the ability to convince women that the punishment for being sexually liberated is pregnancy (amongst other dreadful things) which inevitably means a painful birth of that child. This social construction has altered the birthing experience for many women.
This construction was further explored by twentieth century physician Dr. Grantly Dick-Reid. Dick-Reid was one of the first physicians to explore alternate birthing experiences for women and while doing this he discovered what he called cultural childbirth, which was the “combination of fear and muscle tension caused by ignorance of the birthing process, isolation during labor, and uncompassionate care” (Grant Dick-Reid, p.403). According to Dick-Reid and Gaskin if these factors are removed than a pleasurable childbirth is possible. Feminist philosopher Elizabeth Cady Stanton confirms that women even in the nineteenth century realized this in her writings about her own birthing experience, “Dear me how much cruel bondage of mind and suffering of body poor woman will escape when she takes the liberty of being her own physician of both body and mind” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, p.402).
I found it incredibly interesting that women were able to deliver babies in their sleep. That in itself re-iterates the difference in our ideas about child birth from culture. In fact I’m sure that many American women would think that to be impossible. All of this information just reconfirms to me the notion that a life lived as far outside of many social constructions can be widely fulfilling in many ways.