Pain relief in labour

With the statistics on epi's leading to intervention the guy that put mine in said that they don't know if it is the epi or if it would happen anyway because generally women that opt for epis are having long slow progressing labours anyway. Therefore a lot of the women that end up needing intervention have had an epi. I hope that makes sense.

I had an epi after many hours of labour and only getting to 4cm, after they put it in my mw broke my waters completely (my hindwaters had broke) and then within 2 hours, possibly quicker she only checked cos I felt like I needed to poo once I could feel as the epi was wearing off, I had got to 10cm and he was right there ready to come out. So she said I had a very quick transitional phase and had she had known what I was gonna do she would not have given me an epi I pushed for 2 hours and ended up with vontouse, and that decision was made in part cos of his position causing me tremendous pain that was worse than the contractions, in fact I looked forward to each one of those to divert me from the other pain, and also cos I'd had a c/s with my first and they don't like you to push for too long, so nothing to do with the epi (which had worn off by then anyway)

I had a talk to my OB and he was really reassuring. He said that most of the available statistics and studies have been done on woman receiving a complete epidural that leaves you immobile and on your back. And this is bad for labour in any event. He said that it was oudated and that mobile epi's don't carry the same levels of complications as the traditional ones. They use low dose mobile epidurals. You can still feel all of it without the bad pain. It leaves you movable so you could get into squats etc and they give you time for the epi to start wearing off before they really get you in the active stages of pushing at the end. He said their rate of assisted deliveries among first time epi moms and not are not that different. It is a private practice so perhaps they have a policy to wait labour out where time pressures in the public system might cause the doctors to hurry things.

So my mind is pretty much set at ease now and I don't think I will go at it commando.

The conspiracy theorist in me is starting to question the motives of the antenatal classes and midwives on the issue. I find it strange that with many things the information given is unbiased and you are told about all the pro's and cons yet when it comes to epi's all we were told was the cons. And they didn't even go into how to formula feed baby...what if the cow dries up or my nipples shrivels and falls off? Then I have no information to make an informed decision on substitutes. Seems a bit irrisponsible not to know how the alternative works.

Yes, I totally agree! People do need to be informed about all the options because we don't live in a perfect world where everybody can have natural deliveries and breastfeed exclusively for 6 months. Some of us need assistance by means of c-sections/epidurals/formula etc which may be totally out of our control and we need support as well.

I was one of the ones that needed to give my baby formula top-ups and getting the formula in hospital was definitely looked down upon. I had to sign consent forms and the hospital midwife actually said to me "you're going to get me into trouble"! I was made to feel like less of a mother because I had to give my child some formula. At the end of the day, the baby's health should be paramount and I sometimes feel that breastfeeding is almost pushed a little too much at the expense of the baby's health or mum's wellbeing. Don't get me wrong - I totally support breastfeeding and agree that it is best for baby - I'm just saying that in some circumstances formula is needed and those mothers should be supported also instead of feeling ostracised.

I had epis with both of my children, mostly because I am a big wuss and have a very low pain threshold. With both I think labour took a bit longer, but in my opinion this is because, your midwife doesn't check often enough to see how dilated you are. Both times I think I should have been pushing a lot sooner but because we were unaware of how dilated I was, we just assumed that things were still going very slowly.
With both epis I had next to no pain, except when pushing. Which is because we allowed it to wear off enough so that I could feel when to push easily. And with both I was in a very happy state of mind walking around my room with the epi in (admittedly this was done very carefully lol)
Pethidine did very little for me and the gas just made me feel out of control and spaced out.
I think, like most others in here, that if you go in with an open mind and just do what feels right to you at the time. And don't let anyone make you feel bad if you do have to use pain relief.
I plan to try for a natural labour this time but I won't be ruling anything out :)

I think it must be an injection cos I was gonna birth at a birthing centre with Spencer and mw said they could give pethidine, but I dunno for sure as never had it.

Emmi_ wrote: Interesting reading thanks Ladies! I had been thinking about this over the summer hols.. I am one of the ones who wants to try to do it as natural as possible but am not ruling anything out. Ive started practicing my breathing and visualisation already. One question, how is pethadine administered?? Is it through IV?

Injection into a muscle

I think you just need to figure out what is important to you and go for it. don't let people scare you into having/not having painrelief. Trust your body and know that pain relief is there if needed.