epidurals...

Melody wrote:

I'm a wuss, I'll be the first to admit it, but still managed almost 72 hours
of labor/3 hours pushing without any kind of pain medication. You CAN do it.

Yeah, I know I can do it. The biggest question that I haven't been able
to answer, in all this time, is: Do I *want* to do it? I've only been
able to say "I *think* I want to do it," and nothing more definitive
than that. Right now I'm leaning towards "I don't think I want to do
it," but that's because I'm trying to look at this as objectively as I
can. I mean, we don't have to experience the pain if we don't want to.
An epidural *is* pretty safe, statistically speaking, it's definitely
the safest option for the baby if you're going to go with pain relief
(again statistically speaking), and there is some belief (not sure if
it's backed up by any real studies) that experiencing the pain of
childbirth can actually be, uh, sub-optimal (I don't want to say
harmful) to the baby because of the hormones that are released as a
result of the stress. So really it boils down to choice, in my mind.
Do I want the pain or not? Well duh, of course I don't want the pain.
;-) So the next logical step is to answer the question of whether I
want to experience an unmedicated birth or not, which I'm afraid to
answer right now. I'll take a few more days to think about it.

Another thing that matters to me is how I will feel, physically
speaking, afterwards. Will having an epidural make me recover a tad
more quickly? (due to, perhaps, being slightly less exhausted - I know
that when in a lot of pain, I tense up a lot and tend not to breathe
properly, so my fatigue will probably be pretty bad if I'm not
medicated) I want to be fully alert so that I can fully enjoy my new baby.

I realize they say the risks of having an epidural is small but when you're
one of the people living the hell after a bad one it doesn't seem so
small... My advice is to stop thinking about it entirely. You have all the

Yeah I know someone who had some weird spinal problem happen to her.
She blames her epidural. She was so freaked out by it that she had two
more kids the unmedicated way. She's actually OK now (recovered from
her problem), but she's probably always going to blame the epidural. It
can't be said for sure what caused her problem, though. It happened a
few years after her epidural.

the middle of an extremely tough labor and the discomfort is making you
nauseous,

I am definitely not a puker, so I don't think I'll need to worry about
that.

Me either and I spewed from 7-10cms with both labors. I hit transition and
turn into the puking girl from The Exorcist. It's also interesting to note
that I didn't really mind puking at this point because it was so distracting
from where the pain was and It was totally making me dilate faster! But
with my second birth, it was a little tricky as I was in a tub of water for
all the barfing. My poor husband held the bucket like a champ
As a side note, both of my babies took their sweet time getting out and for
the last week of each pregnancy I was going to the maternity ward for
lengthy non/stress tests to avoid being induced. While I was there, and I
swear this is just my luck, there was *always* a screamer and *always* a
puker.(Sometimes the same woman!) So its not just me that hurls for labor!


Sabine

My experience with epidurals was great-- except and until the midwife
continued to let mine wear off. I now hear that some hospitals give people a
button where they can administer their own epidural meds if they feel the
need (I am sure this has limits, but will allow you to medicate yourself at
least when you feel pain come on and it is time for more meds).

It didn't hurt going in, my back wasn't sore after. It relieved my pain
completely and I could still move my legs.

I went in with 2 attitudes: 1, that I did not want pain relief until and
unless I needed it but 2 if I needed it, I wanted it for sure. Being induced
brought on painful contractions. I almost guess that if I wasn't induced I
might could have tolerated a normal labor without pain meds, but the Pitocin
truly brought on hard and fast contractions.

there is some belief (not sure if
it's backed up by any real studies) that experiencing the pain of
childbirth can actually be, uh, sub-optimal (I don't want to say
harmful) to the baby because of the hormones that are released as a
result of the stress.

I have also heard that the baby gets the endorphins if you go natural, but
doesn't get them if you have the epidural. So that would balance out :-)

--Helen

Sabine wrote:

the middle of an extremely tough labor and the discomfort is making you
nauseous,

I am definitely not a puker, so I don't think I'll need to worry about

that.

Me either and I spewed from 7-10cms with both labors. I hit transition and
turn into the puking girl from The Exorcist. It's also interesting to note
that I didn't really mind puking at this point because it was so distracting
from where the pain was and It was totally making me dilate faster! But
with my second birth, it was a little tricky as I was in a tub of water for
all the barfing. My poor husband held the bucket like a champ
As a side note, both of my babies took their sweet time getting out and for
the last week of each pregnancy I was going to the maternity ward for
lengthy non/stress tests to avoid being induced. While I was there, and I
swear this is just my luck, there was *always* a screamer and *always* a
puker.(Sometimes the same woman!) So its not just me that hurls for labor!


Sabine



Heh heh funny story! ;-) I hope I can keep my stomach under control.
I really hate puking. I've done really well so far... I've been able
to keep it under control when morphine was administered after two
surgeries (morphine really makes me nauseous). The only time I lost it
was when I had this weird unexplained attack of pain that they thought
was spleen-related. It hit me suddenly, I was intensely ill for 24
hours (was in so much pain that all I could do was lie in bed and moan,
and *not* pleasantly heh heh), and then when it went away, it was
discovered that I had this amazingly enlarged spleen. Anyway, that's
the only time I know of that I was in so much pain that I lost it. ;-)
(and to this day no one has a clue what happened to me, but I still
have my spleen, which, by the way, has never reduced to a normal
size...oops)

Vicky Bilaniuk wrote:
Another thing that matters to me is how I will feel, physically
speaking, afterwards. Will having an epidural make me recover a tad
more quickly?

In my experience, NOT having an epidural resulted in a shorter, easier
recovery. Part of that was because the epidural affected me very strongly (I
couldn't stand for two hours after birth or walk for four hours) and because
the epidural led to some interventions that might not have been necessary
without it (episiotomy, vacuum extraction) and because the insertion site
was quite painful for about two weeks after I gave birth. I had none of
those issues in my unmedicated births and therefore, my recovery seemed much
easier. And this is despite the fact that my second labor (my only
spontaneous one) was more than twice as long as my first.

(due to, perhaps, being slightly less exhausted - I
know that when in a lot of pain, I tense up a lot and tend not to
breathe properly, so my fatigue will probably be pretty bad if I'm
not medicated)

I would say that the key thing to getting through labor without pain
medication is the ability to relax, *especially* between contractions. If
you spend all your "down time" between contractions worrying about and
tensing up for the next contraction, you'll definitely wear yourself out
very quickly. And I believe that exhaustion is far and away the biggest
reason women wind up getting epidurals--they get so exhausted from the cycle
of "gearing up" for the next contraction between contractions that they're
constantly in a heightened state of anxiety and expectation, and that leads
to an ultimate inability to cope with the pain during contractions.

I never thought much about being relaxed *during* contractions but I made a
very big effort not to think at *all* about contractions when I wasn't
having one and to just let my body and mind rest. That was essential to
getting through labor unmedicated for me, and I can honestly say that I
never even felt tempted to have pain relief medication because it worked so
well.

I want to be fully alert so that I can fully enjoy my
new baby.

Again, in my experience, unmedicated labor leads to a more fully alert
mother post-birth than having an epidural. That's because the epidural
prevents your body from getting the major endorphin shot that comes *after*
your labor ends and your baby is born, when your mind hasn't quite caught up
to the fact that there's no more pain. Whew! Especially with my second birth
(by far the longest labor), the post-birth endorphin high was *incredible*;
I can't imagine any recreational drug that could compete. Within minutes, I
was asking my husband, "When can we do this again?" And I certainly felt
alert and enjoyed my daughter immensely in the moments and hours following
her birth, despite having gotten very little rest in the past 24+ hours. It
was fine.

Of course, all of that is purely anecdotal and doesn't prove a darn thing
statistically. It's just my experience that the epidural made birth harder,
not easier. YMMV!
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)

This week's suggested Bush/Cheney campaign bumper sticker:
"Leave no billionaire behind."

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

Vicky Bilaniuk wrote:

If I could only decide one way or the other on epidurals, then it would
make things a wee bit easier. If I decide I want one, then they can
prepare me for it right from the start. The backup midwife will know
not to show up, the OB might get a chance to show up and examine me
before the going gets tough, they'll probably start the IV early, and so
on, and if it's late at night, they can get the anesthesiologist out at
a half decent hour rather than right at the last minute (meaning that
the anesthesiologist will hopefully be there at the right time rather
than having to make me wait up to an hour).

I don't think I'd let any of this factor into my decision. It is the
job of the midwife/anesthesiologist/OB to be there when you need them.


If I decide *not* to have
an epidural, then I can put it out of my mind and focus on other pain
relief techniques, and I'll be able to have food while in the hospital.
Obviously, it would be to my advantage to make a decision before labour
starts, or at least very early on in the game once it does start.

The food thing would be enough for me to say no epidural, even if I
was seriously considering one. I think not eating during my labor
resulted in a low glucose reading for my daughter which led to
pressure to supplement/nipple confusion/ and nearly wrecked our
breastfeeding relationship. I firmly believe eating during labor is
really important.

Additionally, epidurals can fail. They can only numb half your body.
Having backup pain coping techniques is really important, just in
case.

Mary

Vicky Bilaniuk wrote:

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

What more do you need to know? Must you decide
this in advance for some reason?


I'm the kind of person who likes to go into things with a fully detailed
plan.

Well, I can certainly understand that. I like
that too ;-)

This is the reason why I'm so freaked out about labour; I can't
fully plan it out. ;-(

True. And it's a great introduction to parenthood,
as there's a lot of that you can't plan out either! Learning
to go with the flow sometimes is a very important lesson.

All I can do is come up with contingencies,
which is why I'm examining all of my options. Grrrr... ;-) I would
*like* to put my finger on something and say "Yes, THIS is what I'll do,
no matter what." I'm finding it hard to do that, though, because of the
whole problem with not having even the slightest clue how labour will go.

But of course. And even once you've had your first,
you still have no idea how your *next* labor will go. You
just don't get to know. You have to be flexible and make
your decisions in the moment.

If I could only decide one way or the other on epidurals, then it would
make things a wee bit easier. If I decide I want one, then they can
prepare me for it right from the start. The backup midwife will know
not to show up, the OB might get a chance to show up and examine me
before the going gets tough, they'll probably start the IV early, and so
on, and if it's late at night, they can get the anesthesiologist out at
a half decent hour rather than right at the last minute (meaning that
the anesthesiologist will hopefully be there at the right time rather
than having to make me wait up to an hour). If I decide *not* to have
an epidural, then I can put it out of my mind and focus on other pain
relief techniques, and I'll be able to have food while in the hospital.
Obviously, it would be to my advantage to make a decision before labour
starts, or at least very early on in the game once it does start.

I would strongly advise against that sort of thinking.
That sort of thinking will pretty much guarantee an epidural.
What is so bad about holding the epidural out as a when-all-
else-fails resort? Go forward assuming you won't have one.
If you change your mind during labor, well, you change your
mind and everyone else can just cope, whether that means
hauling in the anesthesiologist and the OB and sending out
the backup midwife or not. It's not your job to worry about
all that. Having had food won't be a problem medically.
The only downside is that you might have to wait just a bit
longer from your decision until the time that you get the
epidural, but frankly, no amount of pre-planning will
guarantee that you'll get it when you want it anyway.
The anesthesiologist could be busy with an emergency or
any number of other factors. You're not going to die
in the meantime, especially if you've gone in prepared to
go without.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Vicky Bilaniuk wrote:

Relax? I'm sorry, but I don't think I have that word in my
vocabulary. ;-)

I had a shot of stadol while in labor with #1. That relax of the liquid
variety, lol.


--
Nikki

Vicky Bilaniuk wrote:
Heh heh funny story! ;-) I hope I can keep my stomach under control. I
really hate puking. I've done really well so far... I've been able to

Something my doula told me which really helped me is that you can
concentrate on relaxing your stomach if you feel nauseous. I really
hate vomiting, too, and so in situations where I know that it's
not the case that something *needs* to come out, I try to convince
my body that there is no need. Hearing this from the doula really
helped. I did get nauseous at one point, and then just thought about
relaxing my stomach (making it bigger and lower, as much as possible
with a baby in there ;-P), and didn't throw up.

That said, the main worry with eating and labor is if you have
to be given a general anaesthetic -- I guess it's possible to vomit
while going under and end up aspirating it into your lungs. With
Scheherazade, I was allowed to eat during the (short) labor. I didn't
have an epidural, so when the placenta wasn't coming out and I had to
have a D&C in a hurry, they had to give me a general. Since I had
eaten, they had to put a breathing tube down in as they were putting
me under. Not pleasant, but I still think it was better to have
been able to eat.

Emily