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Previous Volume 352:718-720 February 17, 2005 Number 7 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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The pain of childbirth is arguably one of the most severe types of pain a woman will endure in her lifetime. Relief of the pain of childbirth has always been controversial. Misinterpretations of biblical scripture ("In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children") resulted in centuries of denial of pain relief, as clergy insisted that suffering in labor was consistent with divine intent.¹ Fifteenth-century midwives were burned at the stake for offering pain relief during labor.² The modern era of anesthetics began with the first demonstration of inhalational anesthesia during surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846; a few months . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Koerber, A., Arnett, E. J., Cumbie, T. (2008). Distortion and the Politics of Pain Relief: A Habermasian Analysis of Medicine in the Media. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 22: 364-391 [Abstract]  
• Briggs, G. G., Wan, S. R. (2006). Drug therapy during labor and delivery, part 2.. Am J Health Syst Pharm 63: 1131-1139 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Klein, M. C (2005). Early epidurals increase caesarean rate, meta-analysis shows. BMJ 330: 790-790 [Full Text]