Human labour pain is influenced by the voltage-gated potassium channel Kv6.4 subunit
Publication: Cell Reports
Michael C. Lee, Michael S. Nahorski, James R.F. Hockley, Frank Reimann, Ewan St. John Smith, C. Geoffrey Woods
21 July 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107941
Summary:
Women who don’t need pain relief during childbirth may have a key genetic variant that acts as a natural epidural. Supported by the NIHR Cambridge BRC, researchers investigated why some women experience different levels of pain during childbirth.
Women who did not require any pain relief during the birth of their first child took part in a study to understand their pain threshold. This included applying heat and pressure to their arms and putting their hands in icy water. They were then measured against a control group of women were who were given pain relief during childbirth.
They found the group the women who didn’t need any pain relief had a high pain threshold than those of the control group. Their genetic cold was then sequenced and found these women had a higher-than-expected prevalence of a rare variant of the gene KCNG4. This gene acts as a gate, controlling the electric signal that flows along our nerve cells. This could be the reason why these women did not require pain relief during childbirth. Read the full news article