A study by Which? Birth Choice reveals that pregnant women in London are more likely to request pain relief before going into labour than in other areas of Britain. The study of 48,000 prospective parents found that age and location could influence preferences in other ways – two-thirds of Scottish women were interested in birthing pools, while women over 40 were more likely to want medical intervention (foetal monitoring, episiotomies) than young women.

Reading all this was interesting. But at the same time, I thought that while choice is all-important, let’s not fall into the trap of turning options for pain relief – or, rather, turning it down – into a gigantic, virtue-signalling competition.

In my experience, giving birth is a lot of things, but it’s also painful. I had an unplanned, “natural”, drug-free labour with my first child – she was too tiny and quick for anything else, practically greeting the world in the back of a minicab. Then an emergency caesarean section for my second girl, who was premature and in real trouble.

The first time, the pain was brief but shocking. “That smarts!” doesn’t begin to cover it – it felt like I was birthing a lit catherine wheel. But the epidural delivery was worse – the numbing, the operation, the scar, the shock, the weakness, the blur. I don’t wish to scare prospective mums – my complications need to be factored in – but it was tough, leading to my ongoing frustration that the epidural delivery is routinely dismissed as the “easy” option for mums “too posh to push”.

This is what niggles here – not the study itself, which, after all, just presented viewpoints, but, rather, the wider culture of debating the general rights and wrongs of pain relief in labour, as if it were anyone’s business other than the particular woman during the particular birth. Add to this the bizarre background hum of machismo in some quarters – this notion that, ideally, women should be waving away “interference”, cracking their knuckles in the delivery suite, intoning on some gestational tape loop: “It’s the most natural thing in the world.” That, say, Londoners planning pain relief, older mums contemplating some intervention or Scottish women wanting birthing pools, are somehow lesser. (More neurotic? Wussy?).

Isn’t this what happens time and again – ordinary women criticised and lampooned (sometimes by other women) for… well, what exactly? Trying to plot a way through, avoid pain and stress, keep themselves and their babies safe, while doing this immense, perilous thing, giving birth, which used to routinely kill so many women in previous eras and in some parts of the world still does? All this censure and ridicule for women giving birth, from the same society that calls sportsmen “courageous” if they carry on playing a game of football after they’ve stubbed their big toe.

Certainly, it seems ironic to the point of farcical that something as definitively female as the act of giving birth could ever be imbued with a phoney aura of machismo. The ongoing fallacy that some women are “braver”/“better”, because they don’t ask for as much help. Well, take it from me, there’s often no planning in how a birth is going to go. Some women give birth exactly how they want; others end up having to improvise in the great game of delivery roulette.

However, if at any point you see a way through that will keep you and your baby calm and safe, then take it and own it. Believe me, I’ve been there and sometimes a “wuss” needs all the help she can get.

Gunning for the urban fox is no way to start a new year

A petition organised by Labour party animal rights activists is asking London mayor, Sadiq Khan, to stop widespread fox-culling in the capital after the festive season. Foxes are more active around this time because of the extra food to be found in our rubbish and litter. So the plan is for pest controllers to shoot them. Happy new year!

First, surplus litter is something that councils should address and in more humane ways than simply shooting animals. Hmm, this is difficult, let me think – how about organising bin collections?

As has been pointed out, the cull would have no long-term effect on fox numbers and it is nonsensical to classify foxes as vermin because, if anything, they help control pests.

Also, while Londoners are only too aware that foxes rip rubbish bags if they’re left out overnight, that’s about it. While there are probably some instances of dangerous or antisocial fox behaviour, I’d wager most Londoners have seen plenty of foxes (I once saw an enormous one lying, like a lion, on my shed roof), but have never seen them come anywhere near people. And I’ve never heard of a pet being harmed.

So, why shoot London’s foxes, which exist, reportedly, in their thousands? This is not about being “soppy” over foxes. It is about looking at alternative approaches, such as more efficient waste collection in busy periods as well as other, proved fox deterrents, for example, lockable bins, prickly fencing and animal repellent, especially if the alternative is to have people with guns wandering around residential areas shooting animals for trying to forage a bit of old turkey from our bins.

If such a scenario were suggested for a video game it would be denounced as just too pathetic and depressing, so why should Londoners have to suffer the reality?

Yes, breaking up is hard to do, but easier with money, Gwyneth

Gwyneth Paltrow says that even though she and Chris Martin aren’t a couple anymore, they’re still a “family”, and he’d take a bullet for her, and … yak, yak, preachy, self-satisfied yak.

Actually, Paltrow and Martin are to be applauded. Their “conscious uncoupling” has been a resounding success and they didn’t end up clawing each other’s eyes out in the Hamptons, however much some people hoped for this outcome.

It’s all good and their children can only benefit from such an evolved approach. So why do I feel an almost irresistible impulse to yell at Paltrow to “smug off!”? And suggest that she might care to locate a smidgen of self-awareness, not least to acknowledge that maybe (just maybe) the fact they are filthy rich and privileged (with no money or property issues) may just have boosted their chances of a serene postmarital result and that less blessed people may be dealing with more pressures.

Again, all credit to them for the conscious uncoupling thing (not all wealthy couples split with such grace), but perhaps Paltrow could try the conscious, mindful thing and avoid bragging about it.

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