pain med...

I haven't worked in a facility in years that uses Demerol. Hate that stuff, doesn't really help with pain much, or anxiety with labor, and the IM shot hurts. IV Morphine would be better, IMHO. Love fentanyl, however; last job I worked we primarily used this, 50-100 mcgs IVP Q 1hr X 3 doses maximum. It has a short half life, I never had a sleepy baby from it, it relaxes mom and she usually drops off to doze for at least a few minutes, gives her a bit of euphoric feeling. Can give transient nausea and lightheadedness, which does go away in a very few minutes.

I was talking with a nurse I worked with at my last job about the unknown IV drug I got when I was in labor with my girls in 1979 and 1981 (this was before I worked in health care, so avoided the dreaded L&D RN pregnancy and labor curse). This drug worked great, it let me doze, took away a good deal of the pain and anxiety. She said it was probably nisentil which was a wonderful drug but was removed from the market in the 1980s due to a few deaths associated with it.

I tell my pts "Natural" is coming out the magic door. Doesn't matter how you get there, just as long as it comes out the magic door. Everyone has a choice. C-sections are not natural so we do everything we can to make it happen "natural".

I hate labels anyhow. The goal is healthy mom and baby, period.

There are as many understandings of "natural birth" as there are women. There are many women who simply think a vaginal birth is "natural," even with epidural, pitocin, oxygen, vacuum, &c, all the way to the hard core natural birth crowd who think any intervention at all (monitoring, AROM, &C) makes it not natural and give the mother guilt trips for allowing evil OB personnel to do stuff to them (I encountered this attitude in one place I worked).

I think a woman has the right to call her birth natural if she wants to. It's her body, her experience, her birth, after all.

Good outcome (healthy mom and baby) is the ultimate goal -- however you get there. Guilt tripping women into feeling bad because they didn't have a "natural" or unmedicated or complicated birth is not good. Whether or not having an IV pain med is natural or not isn't important, either. Birth hurts like hell and most women don't anticipate in advance how much it will hurt.

I think this is another case of people having a strong opinion about what is healthiest/safest/lowest risk (e.g. breastfeeding; unmedicated birth), and people who choose to do otherwise calling it "guilt tripping". No one can "make you" feel guilty; guilty feelings arise from your own doubts about your choices.

Altalorraine

What's "&C" ? I can't figure put what that stands for...

I think it is meant to be ceasarean. Normally the initials are CS, but, could be this anyway, palesarah.

I just heard at a seminar about using fentanyl IVP during labor instead of Nubaine or such.. how effective do you find it to be and how slow do you push it??and what are the effects on mom and baby?

We use Talwin 30mg IVP. Works great at relaxing Mom...baby gets sleepy too though. Most Moms at our hospital get an epidural. After having my daughter 22 yrs ago with pit, forceps and no meds- I love to see how comfortable Moms are after an epidural