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‘Labour pains are a curse from God’
Pastor Alex Mitala says that while women should have faith that they will not experience pain.
Is it possible to have a pain free natural childbirth? Jackie Mize believes so and says she has had the experience with three children Agnes K. Namaganda writes
The typical doctrine of any Pentecostal church is that all believers in Jesus Christ are delivered from the curse of the law. The curse incurred from the sin of the first man-Adam in the garden of Eden. According to Isaiah 53:4, all sickness, poverty and strife are all things of the past. For believers through faith, prosperity, deliverance from bondages, disease and pain is their new heritage. So they believe.
Well, Jackie Mize in her book Supernatural Childbirth doesn’t think this is all there is for Christians. She says that according to Genesis 3:16 (“I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow, thy shall bring forth children,”) birth pains too are a curse from God. And that the same way Christians are redeemed from poverty and sickness, they are delivered as well from the much dreaded labour pangs that characterise child birth.
Jennifer, a mother of three, Denise who is expecting her second child and Tina who is six months into her first pregnancy are all Pentecostals who when talked to, utterly reject the fact that a woman can ever give birth without experiencing excruciating pain. “That is how God made childbirth-painful,” says Tina who doesn’t even want to listen to any possibilities of a pain-free labour. She’s preparing herself mentally and through physical exercise for her ordeal.
Pastor Alex Mitala, the National Chairman for Born Agains does not refute the fact that a Christian can have faith and believe not to have birth pains. But again, he does not want women who experience pain to feel guilty. “God is a miracle-worker and Christians through faith can believe not to have pain the same way they believe to get rich or to get healed. Even then, not everyone gets healed or gets rich even when they believe God. Women should believe not to have birth pains but should not feel guilty if it doesn’t happen.”
Medically, Dr Tony Kapsandui of Reproductive Health Uganda, says that pain during labour ensues from the strong contraction of uterine muscles. “This causes temporary blockage of blood supply to different parts of the uterus resulting in what is referred to as ischemic pain-extreme excruciating pain-due to less oxygen reaching certain parts of the uterus.” He says though that this happens in a controlled way because blockage for a long time can lead to complications, the reason contractions are on-and-off.
Secondly, the baby on the way out moves through a channel well-supplied with nerves which are sensitive to any contact. This is the other theory behind pain during child birth.
Ms Mize is not antagonistic to medical practices. She encourages routine medical check-ups because medical knowledge comes from God. She agrees that labour pains result from muscle contractions, but that a muscle contraction does not have to hurt. “Contract the muscle of your hand,” she proposes to her readers to experiment.
“No matter how hard you contract it, yes, it will be tight, but it does not hurt. The pain women experience comes mainly from fear and lack of knowledge. This keeps them from being able to stay in control of the situation and keeps them from having the peace of God during delivery. Pain came when Adam and Eve sinned. All pain is under the curse,” she says.
Quoting Romans 12:2, she challenges women to renew their minds and totally change their thinking on the subject of delivering babies the same way they do for finances, health and anything else.
The author says she had her first born the way most other women do-after a lengthy agonising labour-but that for her last three children, it was all pain-free because it was, she believes, this pain is as a result of the curse and that as a child of God, she is above this curse.
But, she says, having the faith for a pain-free labour applies only to normal women. Women who can conceive well, have the scans show that the baby is in the right position with no other complications.
“If you have complications say, you cannot conceive normally in the first place, then you should believe and confess God’s word about having a family according to Genesis 1:28 (be fruitful and multiply). You can also believe God to revert the complications.”
In her book, she testifies that after examination, doctors had told her she would never bear children. But that she stood on God’s word to be able to have all her four children.
She warns though that to get results, a Christian should make sure to confess positively all the time and to trust in God.
