Pain is a very personal experience. We can’t describe any sensation in purely objective terms nor do we have any common frame of reference. Even if you (HH) could experience childbirth, you would only know what you felt, not what another person feels going through the same experience. I can’t reliably describe the sensations involved even to another mother.

There has been some discussion about whether girls feel pain more than boys. There is no way to know. We can measure the response (brain activity and endorphin production for example) but that tells us nothing about what the subject feels. High levels of endorphins might indicate a high sensitivity to pain but they induce analgesia. High sensitivity to pain could equate to not feeling pain as much as one with a low sensitivity to it. Those who, initially, felt pain more might have developed better coping mechanisms too.

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