Medicated pain relief in labour comes either in the form of an anaesthetic, where there’s a complete loss of sensation, a pain reliever (analgesic), which helps you cope with the pain by distancing you from it, or tranquillisers, which change your perception of the pain by inducing relaxation. This goes to show how important relaxation is in enhancing the progress of labour, and there are many things you can do yourself to keep tension at bay (muscle tension has the potential to inhibit labour). If you prefer medicated forms of pain relief, you have options. The drug that’s given depends on how far into your labour you are, how far dilated you are, what type
