Does the establishment want to keep you from having an epidural?

It used to be accepted wisdom that The Man was always trying to push their Caesarean sections, drugs and other kinds of "assistance" during birth so they could make their tee times.

These days things are going in a diffferent direction.

One of the country's most influential midwives, Dr Denis Walsh, has told the Observer that women should be prepared to withstand the pain of childbirth because epidurals carry serious risks, impede bonding and interfere with birth as rite of passage.

Reading a quote from Walsh in the piece, you get the sense that's it's women, not their newborns, who are the real babies.

"A large number of women want to avoid pain. Some just don't fancy the pain [of childbirth]. More women should be prepared to withstand pain," he [said]. "Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has quite a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby."

HIs attitude that pain prepares women for the demands of motherhood sounds a bit too Old Testament to me. Labour pain is natural and temporary, as he says. Of course if you have, say, 12 hours of it, your ability to bond, to recover, to enjoy the rite of passage - much less perform the accompanying dance and attend the feast later - is pretty much dented anyway.

His comments ignore also that understaffed hospitals aren't so well-equipped to escort women through a "natural", often leaving them on their own for long stretches of time. Let's face it, the natural part of natural childbirth from the past wasn't always so rosy, since it sometimes resulted in the very natural state of death for mother or child.

While several experts have denounced Walsh's views as "wrong" and his criticisms misplaced, targets introduced to NHS trusts are placing pressure on hospitals to stop large numbers of women from opting for epidurals.

Fashions in childbirth rise and fall like just about everything else, but the judgment accompanying these blanket rules and statements points the finger at individual women rather than the structures, cultures and health services that surround childbirth in the UK right now. Chastising a woman for determining that she needs pain relief to go on is unnatural indeed.

UPDATE: Jennie Bristow, who writes about parenting for Spiked-online.com and has written and edited several books, sent along this link to a piece she wrote for Spiked. She doesn't buy the idea that natural childbirth is best.