Special to the Gazette Just as labour pain varies greatly from
woman to woman, so do the strategies for managing that pain.
Before the introduction of anaesthetics in Canada, pain
management included changing positions in labour, herbal
concoctions, massage, and, sometimes, alcohol. In the mid-19th
century, ether and chloroform were first tested on birthing
women to alleviate pain. This raised opposition from Christian
clergy, who insisted that God intended for women to suffer in
labour. Queen Victoria famously inhaled chloroform during the
birth of her eighth child in 1853, which helped popularize
anaesthetics. However in Canada, drug-free home births assisted
by midwives were the norm until the early 20th century. By the
1940s, hospital births had become the norm, and anaesthetics
were common. A particularly potent mix of morphine and
scopolamine was used extensively in the first half of the
century. It induced what was called “twilight sleep” and mothers
would thrash violently during labour, then later wak