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Advances in medicine have changed how women give birth. Nowadays, women can opt for epidural anesthesia to take off some of the pain in childbirth. Other women can select to have a scheduled Caesarean section for timing purposes. Despite these options, a new study is reporting that mothers who gave birth via the vaginal canal without the help of epidural anesthesia tend to be happier.

For this study, the research team from the University of Granada Nursing Department, the "San Cecilio" University Hospital in Spain, the Cienfuegos University of Medical Science in Cuba and the Eastern Andalusia Health Research Foundation (FIBAO) set out to measure mothers' satisfaction level in relation to her childbirth. The scientists focused on 60 mothers taken from a sample of 2,800 women who gave birth at the San Cecilio University Hospital from August 2011 to August 2012.

The mothers were monitored three times. The first time was 24 hours after the birth of the child when the mother was still at the hospital. The second time was 14 days after the birth via the phone and the last time was after three months at which the researchers recorded the baby's feeding regime. The researchers concluded that two main factors that increased a mother's satisfaction level were early breast-feeding and a natural birth without epidural anesthesia.

"The mother being happy or not during birth is related to the duration of breast-feeding. There is a greater percentage of mothers who are still breast-feeding after 3 months if they have been happy with the birth, compared to other mothers who were less satisfied with their delivery," explained the principal author of the study, Maria Jose Aguilar Cordero reported by Medical Xpress. "[This research] helps us to increase the level of assistance, makes it possible to continually improve weak points and strengthen the strong points identified."

The study was published in the journal, Nutricion Hospitalaria.