Take pains to promote labor analgesia

AT A NEWS CONFERENCE ON MONDAY, the National Health Commission said that the rate of Caesarean deliveries nationwide was 36.7 percent in 2018, which is lower than the 46 percent in a World Health Organization survey in 2010. They also said that they would popularize measures such as labor analgesia to encourage more pregnant women to choose natural births. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

It has long been common sense that a natural birth is better than a C-section for both mother and baby, because it gives the newborn better immunity protection, while the woman recovers more easily after the delivery. Only those women who have difficulties giving birth naturally or face risks should have a C-section.

Yet natural birth has a major disadvantage: It involves a lot of pain. According to medical experts, if pain is classified into 10 levels, giving birth is at the top. On Mother's Day in 2018, a group of domestic male entertainment stars tried a device that imitated the pain of delivery, and most of them screamed so loudly that they gave up at Level 6. Some of them even called for a "Caesarean birth, please!"