The ethnicity pain gap: it was 'excruciating'

Julie Hammond, a 35-year-old GP from Kent, believes that the “excruciating” pain she experienced during the birth of her second child was not well managed by the medical professionals caring for her. Subscribe ► youtube.com
After a difficult vaginal birth for her first child, her second was delivered by emergency caesarean at 35 weeks. Hammond was administered a spinal block, but remembers that at the time, she was still able to move her legs. “I mentioned this to my anaesthetist at the time, who told me not to worry, and just to relax,” she says. “I definitely felt like I was being dismissed.” No changes were made to the amount of anaesthetic Hammond received. Her story is unfortunately not an isolated case. A Guardian investigation has found women from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely to receive adequate pain relief during labour compared with their white counterparts, building on a growing body of evidence that shows an “ethnicity pain gap” in how pain experienced by people of colour is minimised and left untreated. #ethnicitypaingap #paingapp #pregnancy #childbirth #pain