Ok, so we've all heard the horror stories of bad outcomes from epidurals, and the fact that "natural" childbirth is much healthier for mom and baby has probably been drilled into every nurse (maybe not, but this has been my experience). Then there are those occassions when an epidural is a necessity.
So, I'm just curious: what is your personal opinion of epidurals? Whether you work with laboring moms, or have had a baby yourself, or both. What are some personal opinions about and experiences with epidurals...
With my last labor and delivery I had the epidural with a different kind of med. in it and they just about lost me. I felt like an elephant had sat on my chest and all of a sudden things went black.
My experiences were good with the exception of the one and really it wasn't bad....I'm still here.
Can I just point out how ironically funny this is? If I am reading this right, you basically said "I almost died, but it wasn't that bad. I would do it again." Hmmm, interesting. Pain......... death.... hard to decide.
As far as opinions and personal experiences, let me just compare the two deliveries I witnessed last night. First, beautiful, unmedicated waterbirth. Mom delivered pushing as desired with no direction from us, attached to no IV poles or monitors. Pulled her own baby up out of the water onto her chest.
Second, got an epidural at 6 cm, BP dropped, 6 minutes decel to 70's, spent the rest of her labor unable to lift her legs, needing to be manuevered from side to side by the nurses due to continued variable decels, having her bladder emptied by catheter, connected to IV's, external toco, internal fetal monitor, oxygen mask. We were resolved to probably going to the OR at some point, but she finally delivered lady partslly with alot of loud coaching from us because she couldn't feel to push and the baby continued to have huge decels with each push. Baby went straight to stabilette for initial assessment. Mom got to hold her baby 30-40 minutes later.
If I had my choice, for myself and for my pts, I would choose the first.
So, thus far the opinions seems split almost evenly. I understand the point that epidurals can make the pain of labor tolerable and the experience more enjoyable.
But I also can't help but think about the millions of women who've squatted in a field or hut alone and endured labor pains with no help from any drug or person (just finished reading the Good Earth), and I wonder, "is it the fact that we know that we do not have to endure any pain during labor what makes the pain itself unbearable?" Because, clearly, unmedicated labor pain is tolerable if there are no options.
I also wonder, "what makes the experience of labor pain so empowering?" Is it the fact that it denies the modern concept that pregnancy and labor are medical conditions? Rather they are natural and not requiring "medical" intervention.
I have not yet experienced labor. Can someone explain to me: what did labor pain feel like to you? What made it unbearable? Or, OTOH, what got you through it unmedicated?
Thank you for all of your responses! They're so valuable for not only the work I do with pregnant women, but for my own personal knowledge!
I once heard the pain of labor described as "a really baaadd stomach flu." That, to me, is a pretty accurate description. I mean REEAAALLY BBAADD stomach flu. Cramps, and more cramps. Worst cramps you've ever had and they're rhythmic.
I was medicated the first time, not medicated the second. #2 was in a hurry and apparently I was progressing too quickly or had progressed too far, something. The nurse told me it was too late for any pain meds. Didn't want an epidural. It scared me.
Oh, yeah, and after the cramping, comes the big giant head that attempts to cleave you asunder. That smarts. Feels like your flesh is being ripped. Not just the skin, but the underlying soft tissue as well, and the spreading bone. Fortunately, that part doesn't last as long as the cramping contractions, it's over with in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds.
I guess that is one thing that makes labor bearable, you KNOW it will be over soon. In comparison to a broken bone that can cause pain for MONTHS as it knits itself together, and the soft tissue injuries that are healing at the same time, labor is a walk in the park. A painful, strenuous walk in the park.
And as for strenuous, that was the surprising part. I was prepared for pain, but I had no idea how much WORK it would be. There is a reason they call it labor. With the first delivery, they gave me a narcotic IM and I think it made it harder to get things done. My husband told me I TURNED PURPLE from head to toe while I was trying to push that Moose out.
Empowering, I don't know. It just made me tired. And then I had to take home this squalling mass of flesh that I loved w/all my heart, but it was troubled. It wanted many things from me, but couldn't communicate it's needs effectively, yet it demanded to have them met, right away, and I had to try to learn a new language in order to show my love by meeting these needs. Now THAT is EXHAUSTING! (And you thought MEN were bad).
Which pretty much takes us full circle as to how we got in to this mess in the first place, doesn't it?
well I thought i would add my comment. I am still in nursing school and haven't done OB yet but as a patient, I had a horrible delivery experience. I was in terrible back labor for a long time, seems forever but it was at least five hours. Epidural came and it was like HURRAY!!!!!! However when it came to pushing I couldn't push effectively and got to the three hour mark and the doctor used forceps, and as he was pulling, CRACK there went my coccyx. As well as the cord being wrapped around her neck three times. I am sure people have had worse but I was grateful to have the epi. However, that being said, next time-NO EPIDURAL. I want to push and feel it ! Shouldn't be anything holding the next one in :)
I once heard the pain of labor described as "a really baaadd stomach flu." That, to me, is a pretty accurate description. I mean REEAAALLY BBAADD stomach flu. Cramps, and more cramps. Worst cramps you've ever had and they're rhythmic.
I was medicated the first time, not medicated the second. #2 was in a hurry and apparently I was progressing too quickly or had progressed too far, something. The nurse told me it was too late for any pain meds. Didn't want an epidural. It scared me.
Oh, yeah, and after the cramping, comes the big giant head that attempts to cleave you asunder. That smarts. Feels like your flesh is being ripped. Not just the skin, but the underlying soft tissue as well, and the spreading bone. Fortunately, that part doesn't last as long as the cramping contractions, it's over with in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds.
I guess that is one thing that makes labor bearable, you KNOW it will be over soon. In comparison to a broken bone that can cause pain for MONTHS as it knits itself together, and the soft tissue injuries that are healing at the same time, labor is a walk in the park. A painful, strenuous walk in the park.
And as for strenuous, that was the surprising part. I was prepared for pain, but I had no idea how much WORK it would be. There is a reason they call it labor. With the first delivery, they gave me a narcotic IM and I think it made it harder to get things done. My husband told me I TURNED PURPLE from head to toe while I was trying to push that Moose out.
Empowering, I don't know. It just made me tired. And then I had to take home this squalling mass of flesh that I loved w/all my heart, but it was troubled. It wanted many things from me, but couldn't communicate it's needs effectively, yet it demanded to have them met, right away, and I had to try to learn a new language in order to show my love by meeting these needs. Now THAT is EXHAUSTING! (And you thought MEN were bad).
Which pretty much takes us full circle as to how we got in to this mess in the first place, doesn't it?
You mention one of the most important points - that labor is temporary and you know that as you're experiencing it. I was the poster who called the gen x and y mothers wimpy. I'll take that back only to reiterate that if women coming to the hospital feel so inadequate re: labor that they have to have this intervention.....we've ("we" = medical, industrial complex) failed our patients miserably. Medical intervention is something you keep in the back of your mind that might be required during labor but not to be requested. Instead of coming up to the floor and requesting an epidural, let's spin it around. "I'll have an epidural only if its medically necessary." A previous poster was hard on anesthesia for not offering epidurals after midnight. Well, you'd feel the same way if you had to come in the middle of the night because "it hurts" and sleep your way through a double mastectomy with bilateral reconstructions the next day. When a department is large enough to staff OB around the clock and let the poor sucker off the next day, or at least come in late, then they'd be happy to charge you thousands of dollars for sleeping downstairs and coming up every few hours to top off you epidural. If I have to pay for your unnecessary epidural (educating yourself about labor anyone?) then you should have to pay for me to have my teeth whitened. It really causes me pain knowing that my teeth are not at their whitest - and this is a chronic condition - not 8 hours. Thanks.
In many respects I agree with the above post. There are risks involved. Most of the time there are no problems, but sometimes there are.
Of three births, I had an epidural with two. The "all natural" one was by far my favorite. The only bad part was all of the women who felt it was their place to tell me how crazy I was not to request an epidural.
If patients are informed of the risk, go for it. Besides with all of the lovely childbirth horror stories that women hear while they are pregnant, it's no wonder that most of them are terrified by the time labor starts. It's wonderful that we have the choice of an epidural and I think that it can certainly be a tremendous benefit in a very long or very hard labor.
T
wish i had had those horror stories - all i heard was from my mom - god rest her wonderful soul - " its a pain you will forget easily and never remember - LOLOL after 4 kids i recall ALL the pain quit vividly and after the last 2 with much difficulty and almost loosing them both and me with the last one - I'm done hahaha. never had an epidural but had i had time with the last 2 i know id have done it cause the first 2 were horrible and very long - the last 2 were quick but too quick - even had to have emergency c sect to get last one out as my uterus just quit and we were both i am told afterwards ( dont recall much of the end ) going down fast- whew - time to call me to old lol.
Perhaps I'm just crazy... But am I the only one out here left who finds value in the awesome power of labor? You know - the value of women discovering excatly what their bodies are capable of? That they can do this thing that their mothers, aunts, grandmothers did? There is also value for the significant other to witness this powerful force called labor.... and knowing that their partner is a strong and capable woman?
It's true that coaching a woman through a natural labor is very hard and time consuming work, but doesn't anybody else love it?
Doesn't anybody else get sick of piling on intervention after intervention that comes with anesthesia? Itching, vomiting, cathing, decels...
Me, 2 babies, no epidurals. I know how strong I am and remember it every day when I parent my 3 and 5 year olds.
my first hubby when he saw what i went through nearly wouldn't let us have another cause he "didn't want to see me go through that again " - umm yeah he left the room so often i barely recall him being there ( hmm well lol - that's beyond me after all he did to me but hats another story haha ) anyhow - my second hubby - god bless him - was so horrified by it ( of course we had other problems too that made it harder for him like whisking me off the or for emergency c sect and not able to explain right away so he thought we were both gonna die ) anyhow - LOL - he saw what was going on and said what he saw was one of the most horrifying things he ever saw - i guess if i had to do it again ( which i wont lol) id use it not just for my comfort but for his as well - he toughed it out well but i thought for sure wed loose him to the floor several times when i was having labor hahaha.
I'm glad I know what it really feels like, but I wouldn't wish it on anybody. It's a personal decision.
LOLOL i am glad too but wouldn't wish it on anyone either - i have made it perfectly clear though grandam meant well when she was alive and said "its the best pain ever and you wont remember it " - she was wrong lol. my daughter just laughs but at least she wont be thinking she is gonna go in and pop out this kid and not feel much hahaha. ( i was only just 18 when i had my first and along with being a unmarried pregnant teen when it wasn't cool i was also very naive and believed a lot of things my mom said lol)
So, thus far the opinions seems split almost evenly. I understand the point that epidurals can make the pain of labor tolerable and the experience more enjoyable.
But I also can't help but think about the millions of women who've squatted in a field or hut alone and endured labor pains with no help from any drug or person (just finished reading the Good Earth), and I wonder, "is it the fact that we know that we do not have to endure any pain during labor what makes the pain itself unbearable?" Because, clearly, unmedicated labor pain is tolerable if there are no options.
I also wonder, "what makes the experience of labor pain so empowering?" Is it the fact that it denies the modern concept that pregnancy and labor are medical conditions? Rather they are natural and not requiring "medical" intervention.
I have not yet experienced labor. Can someone explain to me: what did labor pain feel like to you? What made it unbearable? Or, OTOH, what got you through it unmedicated?
Thank you for all of your responses! They're so valuable for not only the work I do with pregnant women, but for my own personal knowledge!
good question and id love to hear the answers - having had it 4 times i still don't know how to describe it - shoving a bowling ball where it don't belong? that may frighten my daughter lol. so i look forward to the answers also. honestly - it hurt like hell - the first i was a unmarried teen with little support and was scared stiff and had no clue and it was one of the most horrifying painful things i can recall going through ( the only thing that has topped it was my nissan wrap surgery and I've had a lot of abdominal surgery lol) anyhow - the second - i wasn't much older and though married still had not much support and even less cause now my main support , my mom - was watching the first lol. so i was wired and it hurt like hell. the 3rd - i had premature labor - wasn't to bad - they got it stopped and i was laid up for 3 months - then it wouldn't start back up so had to have pit - well - that hurt like hell cause it got going to fast and man what a mess - from 2 - 10 in 15 min lol. the 4th - well - pain was the most intense and on its own no drugs was way to fast - and then my uterus quit - THAt was soooo painful my belly was just one looonngggg contraction - of course we had to be rushed out quit quickly to the or = so though i dont regret any of my kids and love them all dearly i can not say i enjoyed giving birth to them an say that i was able to even see them come ( hard to watch something all doubled up in pain - i enjoyed the pregnancy -= the afterwards but definitely NOT the labor lol.
I remember how strong I am, don't need meds or lack of meds to do that. FWIW, I had three kids, three epidurals and none of them worked other than to speed me up big time.
As a nurse, I always made sure my pts understood the advantages and disadvantages.
Just because women before us were able to have babies without medication doesn't mean I have to. Although I did in the end.
this is really an interesting thread - i think i am gonna ask my grandmother who is still alive and older women i know - did they really remember the birth? see the bay come out and all that good stuff or was it just pain push em out and then remember the joy of what was in their arms and the joy of carrying them - the product of what they had just went through. i now i don't recall seeing my kids till after it was all done and over and i know my mom didn't either - or shed have had better advice for me lol.
my opinion is they can be disease states - the anxiety and depression and other emotional disorders it can cause are juts as real diseases as a gangrenous limb - if it weren't it would be like saying an alcoholic isn't sick they are just stubborn or something in my opinion - pain is very real and acute pain such as childbirth causes some deep emotional states - if someone had a car wreck and had back pain from say a pulled muscle - we would advocate pain relief and a pulled muscle isn't a "disease" per say - i can say from experience muscles are very pulled and painful with labor lol. just my opinions here -
A while back, there was a speaker in town who gave a presentation on Civil War medicine. (The city where I live was a hub on the Underground Railroad.) I love medical history, and have a huge collection of old medical books, so of course I went. He actually had a bitten bullet with tooth marks in it and everything. It sort of looked like a hardened piece of chewing gum.
I don't have kids, but my SIL had epidurals with both daughters and she would recommend it to anybody. My mom had 3 kids in the 1960s and with each of us, she had a saddle block which she didn't understand because she said they don't do that until it's almost over.
A few years ago, one of the hospitals in the large city where I grew up advertised that epidurals were available in their OB unit, as if they weren't elsewhere. A retired woman doctor wrote a letter to the paper stating that she had stopped delivering babies in 1964, and at that time had been using them for more than 20 years. So, it's nothing new.
As a hospital pharmacist, I oversee their preparation, and one of my technicians said, "I gave birth to three babies, and I was NEVER in enough pain that I would have wanted someone to stick a needle in my back!"
We're all different.
now that you mention it - having fibromyalgia ( one cant even touch me with a fingertipp without feeling like they just pinched me ) its probably a good thing i wasnt able to have epidurals lol - it probably would have been worse than the labor lol. of course thats only with my last 2 but still...... hahaha
At the hospital I delivered at I just ate and drank as I wanted during labor. So much better than an IV:) Dehydration does suck but so does having that needle in your arm and pole to drag around. If you can have ice chips why couldn't you have water? I ate about 2 pounds of Bit O Honeys during my last labor. They just tasted wonderful to me for some reason.
As for the walking comment I made earlier, I was just thinking of women with epidurals. I was allowed to walk feely in labor but I didn't have an epidural. I also requested IFM with doppler so that's what I got. I moved around freely with pit also. The continuous monitoring goes along with the epidural I think.
Good luck with your birth.
with my first i had 3 days of braxton hicks each day worse than the other - i was told not to eat heavy - just crackers and such to prevent throwing up as i was quite nauseous - but by the time i got to the hospital in real labor i was exhausted from the painful braxtons ( i was a scared teen which made em even worse - had i only knew what was ahead of me lol) i was starving - the did not want me to have anything in case i threw up but they caved and gave me cream of mushroom soup yuck- and DRY toast double yuck lol - id have loveeed the cereal lol. i never did throw up - after that the other 3 i ate before i went lol.
RNnL&D
323 Posts
Can I just point out how ironically funny this is? If I am reading this right, you basically said "I almost died, but it wasn't that bad. I would do it again." Hmmm, interesting. Pain......... death.... hard to decide.
As far as opinions and personal experiences, let me just compare the two deliveries I witnessed last night. First, beautiful, unmedicated waterbirth. Mom delivered pushing as desired with no direction from us, attached to no IV poles or monitors. Pulled her own baby up out of the water onto her chest.
Second, got an epidural at 6 cm, BP dropped, 6 minutes decel to 70's, spent the rest of her labor unable to lift her legs, needing to be manuevered from side to side by the nurses due to continued variable decels, having her bladder emptied by catheter, connected to IV's, external toco, internal fetal monitor, oxygen mask. We were resolved to probably going to the OR at some point, but she finally delivered lady partslly with alot of loud coaching from us because she couldn't feel to push and the baby continued to have huge decels with each push. Baby went straight to stabilette for initial assessment. Mom got to hold her baby 30-40 minutes later.
If I had my choice, for myself and for my pts, I would choose the first.