pains of labour

The princess who had been hiding her pregnancy until she reached her term was really suffering the pains of labour.

Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow.

From 1661 the words prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer emphasised the perils and pains of labour.

Similarly, in Papua New Guinea, fathers built a hut outside the village and mimics the pains of labour until the baby is born.

Between 8 and 9 o'clock PM on 19 March, Empress Marie Louise began to experience the first pains of labour.

In the case of childbirth, which in the nineteenth century so often proved fatal, there was a certain disposition - at least among males - to believe that to relieve the pains of labour would be to interfere with what had been divinely preordained; indeed the Bible could be quoted to this effect.