When it comes to giving birth in North America today, it seems that women are left with very few choices of how to labour and birth their children.
Unless women decide to go with a midwife or hire a Douala, it is unlikely that they will be aware of how many different options they actually have to fight labour pain. The epidural seems to be the only real choice that is provided at the hospital. And unfortunately for those women who would have liked to try for a natural birth, or one that has the least amount of side effects for themselves and their baby, there isn’t many options that are offered.
However in the UK, that is not the case. Most women are able to labour and deliver babies without having to turn to the epidural. Does this mean that UK women have a higher tolerance to pain? Absolutely not. They are just using other pain managing methods, including the awesome Obi TENS.
I stumbled upon the Obi TENS when I was preparing for my natural labour with my older daughter, and found that it was an incredible way of helping to manage labour pain. TENS units are available in many hospitals but are very inconvenient to use, and in fact, most hospital staff do not even know how to use them. Most doctors do not know a lot about them either, since they haven’t seen too many women using them, nor have many women requested for one to be available to them.
A TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) unit works by passing mild electrical impulses through electrode pads, which are adjusted to the users skin, into the nerve fibers that lie below. The TENS impulses then, help the body to produce its own pain killing chemicals, such as ‘endorphins’.
The Obi TENS unit was specifically designed for fighting labour pain. And unlike other TENS machine which have many complex options and need to be plugged into an outlet, the Obi TENS is a very simple unit, that has three major buttons, is battery operated, providing freedom for full mobility, other than in water. The three buttons include the On and Off button, buttons to adjust the intensity level, and a Boost button, designed to be used during contractions, where the electrical pulses are boosted to overcome the intensity of the pain.
Studies have shown that it is an effective way to manage labour pain, it is very safe for both the labouring woman and baby, and does not leave any unwanted side effects. As well it provides women with complete freedom to labour and birth in whatever position they choose, and to use other pain managing techniques along with it, including hypno birthing techniques, and other medication such as laughing gas, which are also available in most hospitals.
The Obi TENS is also great to use beyond your labour and birth, to help manage muscle pain, migraine pain and menstrual pain as well.
I used the obi TENS for both of my labours and found it to be absolutely helpful in both cases, even during my 17 hour back labour, and would definitely recommend it to any women going into labour.
Now that you know that this is an option available to manage labour pain, wouldn’t you want to use it too?
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