Hooray, I say. At last a report that doesn’t talk arse.Because there are some people – for brevity, we’ll call them “mad” – who believe these little gadgets with their sparrow-like pulses can distract from the pain of childbirth. Ha! In the same way, presumably, that you can take your mind off a non-anaesthetised leg amputation by tuning in to Classic FM.
Look, Tens might be great for someone with a spot of light lumbago but, as the Americans say, let’s take a reality check. Aside from a sponge and a hand-held fan, I’ve never encountered something so unequal to its task. Your body’s trying to pass a bullock through a cat flap. How does an electric flutter help, please? You may as well offer someone who’s just had their head blown off a Kleenex tissue.
Actually my friend says she did find a use for Tens partway into a gruesome labour: she hurled it into the face of her unhelpful husband. This brought temporary relief, although the manufacturers may feel this isn’t a suitable marketing strategy.
Why pretend that anything less than hard drugs has an impact on the agony of labour? This is what science is for, people. So we are not still branding ourselves with hot irons to cure arthritis, and are coming up with the genius of the epidural, which enables you to do a crossword unaware that you’re being split in two.
The next time someone trots out that clich? that women should endure the pain of labour to toughen them up for motherhood, reply that you’ll concur – when men start undergoing vasectomies aided only by a scented candle.