Remember giving birth? Was it painful? Excruciatingly so? Your mind just might be playing tricks on you — at least that's the word from a new study that claims the pain of childbirth isn't actually nearly as bad as we remember.
Or at least it's not always that bad.
Researchers at Open University in Israel asked 320 laboring moms to rank their pain on a scale of 1 to 100. Then they checked back in with those same moms two days and then two months after delivery.
Their findings? We tend to remember the absolute worst pain of labor, and that's how we sum up the whole thing. So when we're saying, "OMG, I've never hurt so bad," we're really only referring to a portion of the time we spent bringing baby into this world.
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Surprisingly, the length of labor didn't seem to matter. Moms who had babies faster had the same habit of remembering only the peak labor pains as the moms who had lengthy deliveries.
Of course, no one is saying childbirth doesn't hurt because … DUH! But let's face it — there are plenty of early stage moments in between contractions that are relatively painless. Comparing those times to the 10 centimeters dilated, contracting constantly, and trying to push a watermelon through a hole the size of a Clementine really doesn't make much sense, now does it?
On the 1 to 100 scale, how bad was YOUR labor?
Image © iStock.com/Yarinca
