Labor Pain: A Comparison of Parturients in a Dutch and an American Teaching Hospital

Women giving birth in two university hospitals, one in the Netherlands and the other in the United States, were surveyed postpartum regarding expectations of pain in labor and availability of medication for its relief, perceptions of the painfulness of labor, and use of analgesia and anesthesia. American women expected labor to be more painful, anticipated that they would receive medication for it, and did receive such medication in significantly greater proportions compared with Dutch parturients. These findings point to fundamental, culturally determined differences between these two societies with respect to women's views of the painfulness of childbirth.