Labour is thought to be one of the most intense and painful experiences in a woman's life. Numerous studies using a Visual Analogue Scale invariably demonstrate that 20% of women in labour describe the pain as "unbearable" and 60% describe the pain as "very intense". Since the mid-1980s, continuous epidural analgesia during labour has been considered the gold standard of labour anaesthesia and ...

Thirty-seven nulliparous women recruited from Lamaze classes rated their selfefficacy to use the pain coping strategies taught in these classes as well as the importance and anticipated outcome of using these strategies. Prior to labour, these ratings were obtained for each phase Ð early, active, and transitional Ð of the first stage of labour. During labour, women completed three pain inventor...

OBJECTIVES Growing numbers of people are migrating outside their country for work, and many experience precarious conditions, which have been linked to poor physical and mental health. While international dialogue on human trafficking, forced labour and slavery increases, prevalence data of such experiences remain limited. METHODS Men from Dolakha, Nepal, who had ever migrated outside of Nepa...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine whether experimental pain tests (EPTs) using heat, pressure, and i.v. cannulation before induction of labour reliably predict epidural analgesic use and pain intensity during labour. METHODS Fifty healthy women with singleton, term pregnancies admitted for scheduled induction of labour comprised the study population for this prospective case-c...

The recent run of good macro-economic news masks mounting evidence that worklessness is increasingly concentrated on selected individuals, households, socio-economic groups and geographical areas . Simply focussing on the aggregate unemployment rate bypasses many of these issues. Likewise, concentration on average wages and wage growth obscures the highest level of wage inequality ever statisti...