Despite childbirth being thought of as an extremely painful and difficult process, a new study conducted by psychologist Thierry Postel of Blainville-sur-Mer, France, suggests the "orgasmic birth" is not just anecodte FOX News reports.
The new study is among the first to try and apply hard science to mostly anectodal evidence of "orgasmic births." Postel asked 956 French midwives to complete an online survey about orgasmic birth, and received 109 completed responses from midwives who had combined assisted in 206,000 births throughout their careers.
Childbirth educator Debra Pascali-Bonaro featured anecdotal reports of "orgasmic birth" in her 2009 documentary, "Orgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept Secret." She told FOX News' LiveScience that many people are skeptical of the concept of experiencing pleasure during birth, as some see the idea of sexual feelings in the moment as unnaceptable.
"People see 'birth' and 'orgasmic' together on paper, and it pushes all their buttons on sexuality," Pascali-Bonaro said to LiveScience. She added that many women in the U.S. give birth in settings where are not able to move about freely due to fetal monitoring devices, or with little labor support and disallowed from drinking water before a C-section surgery is performed. She said all of these experiences make a pleasurable birth experience far less likely and imaginable for women who have had babies.
Postel wrote that he chose to focus on the midwives as opposed to doctors as nurses because many midwives witness birth firsthand and are "reliable observers."
He wrote that the results "established the fact that obstetrical pleasure exists," as the midwives reported 668 cases in which mothers told them that they'd experienced orgasmic sensations during birth. In another 868 cases, midwives reported seeing mothers demonstrate signs of pleasure during childbirth.
Pascali-Bonaro said the new survey likely underestimates the number of women who have experienced pleasure during birth, as it primarily asks midwives to provide the information as opposed to the mothers themselves. In a screening of her new film, she said an obstetrician in the audience stood up to say "he'd never witnessed anything remotely orgasmic in his years of delivering babies."
"Three rows behind him a woman jumped up and said, 'Doctor, I gave birth with you three years ago, and I had a very orgasmic birth, with an orgasm, but what makes you think I would tell you?'" Pascali-Bonaro said.
Despite widespread skepticism, research suggests orgasmic birth boils down to simple anatomy, stimulating the birth canal, the vagina and the clitoris and uterine contractions, Barry Komisaruk, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey who studies orgasm, said to LiveScience.
"A lot of women say during sexual orgasms uterine contractions feel pleasurable," Komisaruk said. "There are so many factors that could make the difference between a pleasurable response and a terribly stressful, aversive experience that you can't generalize it. There's no reason to try to generalize. Different people have different pain thresholds. Different people have different attitudes. If a woman has a fear of sexuality, if she starts having a pleasurable sensation she may feel this is completely inappropriate psychologically, and that itself could be an aversive effect."
"It's such a culture where some women actually feel shamed that they have pleasure, because the expectation is pain," Pascali-Bonaro said. "We have to change that."
The new survey is available online in the journal Sexologie.
