AbbyMN needs your "pain relief in labour" thoughts.

I wanted everything under the sun first time round, from about the time of my positive pregnancy test. What with every single culture saying that childbirth is hideously painful and all. I was the only person in my touchyfeely antenatal group saying yep, epidural, that's the one for me.

It didn't work very well - only on one side; but given that I was in labour for two and a half days, or something vile like that, I came out of the hospital saying bloody hell, I could never do that without drugs.

For some insane reason (mainly because hospital is fairly horrid to be in) I decided, however, to try for a home birth with my second baby. Had a pool. And about as much gas and air as I could stuff into my frame. Fab stuff, gas'n'air. Doesn't knock out all the pain - in fact I reckon half the benefit is because you are actually breathing, not tensing up - but it is a very nice drug.

When I had dd1 11 years ago, I had an epidural, mainly because a) I'd been labouring overnight and was 12 hours in and too tired to push, b) they gave them out quite readily back then, and c) I was scared of the idea of being in that much pain. I tried g&a before the epidural but it made me sick, TENS didn't really have any effect and was advised not to have pethidine as that would probably make me sick too (turned out to be right when I was given it for a different reason some years later). Epidural probably delayed labour and contributed to ventouse delivery (as dd1's heartrate was dipping they whooshed her out at the last minute), but all was fine in the end.

Dd2 - had been up all night with d&v and was totally exhausted and felt really ill - I was praying I wouldn't go into labour that day but sure enough at 11am contractions started 5 mins apart! When we got to the hospital (having set off pretty much straightaway) I was told I was almost 10cm dilated and it was too late for an epidural - at which point I burst into tears! I felt so terrible. Lovely anaesthetist took pity on me and gave me an epidural. Labour was 8 hours in the end, probably double what it would have been if I hadn't had the epidural, but dd2 was fine, no assistance needed (though I did tear).

Ds1 (only 3 years ago) - different story altogether - epidurals no longer routinely offered. I knew I didn't like g&a, and that morphine would probably make me ill, so I had a waterbirth. Absolutely fab, pain was totally manageable. Didn't feel the need for any other pain relief at all. Birth was about four hours from start to finish. Ds had his hand up against his face when he was born and still I didn't tear.

Ds2 - different hospital, no pool . Gave birth on land (though spent some of it in a bath), on my own (ie without dh, there were midwives there!), not the best experience - but I think that was more down to dh not being there than anything else. Did find it harder than having ds1 - transition was horrible - but I had good care and ds2 was fine. One small tear but I persuaded them not to stitch it and it healed fine.

(Incidentally, between ds1 and ds2 I had my appendix out and was given morphine intravenously - it did weird things to my brain - I was wailing and crying apparently! - so v. glad I didn't try using it during labour)

oh, i forgot to say that i also laboured in a pool for a while but found that pretty underwhelming too. it didn't help the pain and i just ended up feeling pissed off that i was all pruney.

DD1 - epidural. Didn't plan it, wanted to go with the flow. Turns out she was back to back and her right hand was up above her ear, cupping her head. She was born via forceps delivery.

DD2 - nowt. Because of the epi first time round, I didn't realise how far progressed my labour was. By the time I arrived at hospital, I was over 9cm dilated, only a lip of cervix in the way, so no time for other pain relief. G&A made me puke. It hurt so bad I wanted to die, but there was no help for it.

DS - I would like to try water and/or diamorphine if hte pain gets too bad, but will see how it goes.

Had 3 babies and didn't have pain relief with any of them

Furst time I didn't want any but was prepared to have some if I needed it. However had booked myslef into an activebirth unit so knew I'd only be able to have gas & air and only if I asked. The pain was bad but I dealt with it by thinking 'it's going to get a lot worse than this'. And anyway I arrived at the hossier 10cms dilated and ready to push so would have left it too late anyway. That and I used a tens amchine which in itself I believe to be utterly useless but trying to work out if it was on and was I using it correctly etc distracted me throughout the contactions so it worked well in the sense.

Number 2 - had a home birth and didn't occor to me to have pain relief. However this was a lot more painful, contractions very fierce havibng been bought on by castor oil and a bigger baby. But again it was a case, with me, of keeping calm, staying in control and thinking 'i can do this'. This time I got in teh bath to labour and DP poured water from a jug onto my belly. Didn't stop the pain but it ws the distraction thing again.

DD3 - I had another home birth but this time bought a pool. Water was an amzing pain killer. This time I had a silent labour and very much used breathing to control the pain along witht he water.
Only after the birth and I was being examined did I this time ask for gas & air and set about laughing so hard, it was great!

Message withdrawn

TENS machine and gas and air for me. I was open minded about pain relief beforehand as had no idea how painful it would be or how I would cope with the pain, but ideally didn't want pethidine because of the effect on the baby and didn't want an epidural because i am a bit phobic about being numb/paralyzed. in the event, i found the pain was quite manageable until the final stages, by which point i was too far gone to do anything other than soundtrack my contractions with a series of operatic screams go with it.

the TENS machine in conjunction with breathing/humming/mooing was brilliant, but i was really underwhelmed with the gas and air, it did very little for me. i still used it when they were stitching me up though.

DD1 - pethedine so I could have some sleep after being in on/off labour for 24 hours. Then gas and air and then an epidural(lovely) when they started the oxytocin. I think the pethdine made her very sleepy and reluctant to latch on.

I had always thought I would have some sort of pain relief and as soon as I was strapped to a bed being induced and monitored I went straight for the epidural.

dd2 - (PROM again!) Started with gas and air when I hit established labour and then moved onto an epidural a few hours later. It was a very busy night on the labour ward (13 babies born in a 12 bed unit) and the midwife was very absent.

I asked for paracetamol when I thought things were getting a bit painful with dd1, and found that I was fully dilated after being sickwith the paracetamol.
Gas and air from then on. Didn't feel I needed anything more (although would have asked for something more for stitches afterwards if I'd been thinking straight - They really hurt)

General anaesthetic for dd2

Gas and air for ds. Was enough for me, helped by a relatively short labour and quick delivery.

wrote on birth plan that I didn't want any painrelief unless absolutely necessary. Ha

Started off with TENS machine that was ripped off and thrown soon after I entered the delivery room as every time I tried to get on the bed the wires got caught, came out adn gave me an electric shock. Plus by then it was doing fuck all.

Ended up with gas and air (bit through first mouthpiece so had to be replaced), pethadine, and an epidural that was topped up 3 or 4 times (I could still feel my lower half, but not the pain so didn't affect me as some did). I also was given stuff to force the contractions (2 types as first didn't work).

I had a ventouse and an episthingy (where they cut you) and collapsed shortly after as had lost lots of blood (got given 3 litres afterwards).

Was not an easy birth adn came out thinking at least I didn't have to have the emergency c-section they were threatening me wtih.

Am pleased I had the pain relief as remember little of the birth - which in my case was a good thing. I remember the important parts, but have forgotten the stuff that left my dp shaking.

I'm quite happy the amount of stuff I had as the outcome could have been a lot worse as there were problems. Was in hospital for 5 days in the end (mixture of problems with ds and with me), but a c-section would have been harder to recover from I think, and I'm glad I managed to avoid it.

with dd it was a very long labour, over 48hrs

at first I wanted as natural as possible and for the first 24rhs of proper active labour I used a tens which was fine

but after a couple of days of not sleeping was susceptible to suggestion and was given Pethadine this was awful I felt paralysed but still in pain, absolute hell

eventually I had an epidural which am sure delayed labour even further but managed a VD without extra assistance

Oh and both mine were spine to spine to, ds had cord wrapped around his neck three times, and dd was a brow presentation.

Midwife said 'goodness me, you don't do easy babies do you'

I'm not doing any more either.

I didn't have any pain relief drugs except for a local whilst the ventouse was done. I did use a birthing pool which should be classed a pain relief IME.

I'm in the Netherlands and there is no pain relief offered for home births (and yes, that includes gas and air). I was quite happy with that and prepared to go to hospital if I couldn't hack it.

In the end I had to go to hospital for a ventouse delivery after the stupid MW forced me to push for an hour with no urge to push I was given an injection of local before it was done and more local for the stitches.

TBH I the pain wasn't as bad as I had expected, I mean it was fucking bad, but I could handle it fine.

Gas& Air and diamorphine twice.

Went straight into established labour so nothing for first 30mins, G&A for an hour, diamorhpine (didn't work), requested epidural but had to wait, told 2 hours later it was time to push and too late for epidural so panicked and asked for more diamorphine...didn't work but distracted me for a while.

G&A for stitches (ouch)

Just paracetamol aferwards as didn't want any more spacey drugs. Baby was prem and sleepy (from my diamorhpine probably!) and I wanted to be as alert as possible.

I had pethedine with DD1, the G&A made me dizzy. Pethedine was great.

With DD2, different HA, no pethedine, only diamorphine. It worked as pain relief, but I was hallucinating, started to feel paranoid and had a couple of major panic attacks. Diamorphine was horrible.

My only thoughts pre-labour were that I didn't want an epidural.

If I have another DC, I'll have to do without pain relief, unless the HA have started using pethidine.

DS1, induced, MW offered pethadine, I had no idea what it was but if it helped 'take the edge off' as she told me, I thought it can't be a bad thing. Once the pethadine had kicked in I knew nothing else, when I came round after DS1 was born found I'd had an epidural which apparently didn't work until I tried to stand up to go to the post-natal ward.

DS2, also induced, had banned any mention of pethadine, used the G&A mouth piece to bite on from about 7cm, but didn't get any good lung fulls of G&A throughout the labour. Think I had about 3 proper puffs of it when she started stiching me up after, but soon realised that actually stitching isn't any more painful than an injection so put it down.

This time, as long as there is a G&A mouth piece to hand, I'll be fine (...she says shitting it very bravely)

DS, 1st baby back to back (copy that comment RS - still is in fact!) didn't get much pain releif (waters broke early morning, presented at delivery suite that evening, didn't want to check progress as infection risk), two paracetamol and voltoral were all that was offered when my DM demanded something!! I did have tens but frankly was wondering from loo to bed to back again and it just got in a bloody annoying tangle and I didn't get a chance to read the instructions to know there was a boost button. Eventually given G + A minutes before discovering that I was in fact fully dilated. Thought that is was heaven in a mouthpiece.

DD was totally different, induced so slow build up which I didn't have with DS. waters were broken for me and tried again with the tens. The midwife told me it was working but you could have bloody fooled me. Especially when about half an hour after giving birth i still had the pads on and could feel nothing.

This time I got given G + A at 5 cms as the pain was immense. First few puffs and I cried out that 'It's not working! I want an epidural!!' DD born within about an hr weighing in at 10 and a half pounds. I often wonder if it was the induction or the big baby that made this labour so painful and have told DP that I'll have to have another to find out. Dp however believes we don't really need to know!

First labour, first 30 hours (oh yes) nothing but breathing and massage, then gas and air, once they put me on oxytocin, then a spinal when the tit of a consultant announced 'hmm it will have to be forceps and you're going to need a big episiotomy I'm afraid' .
Having the spinal was horrendous, (no, I'm sorry you can't take gas and air to theatre with you and please can you not push, grrrrrrrrr), but once it was done it was great, after being in very painful labour for 36 hours the midwife saying 'now I'll let you know when you are having a contraction, so you know when to push' was like a dream come true.

Second labour was very quick so just a bit of gas and air for pushing.

As far as I was concerned gas and air was fantastic, no sickness, just like being hopelessly pissed to the point where nothing seems to matter, but wears off really quickly.

Gas and air and a TENS machine with dd. Didn't want to have anything else because of poss effects on baby and increased likelihood of intervention.

Will let you know about ds in a few days!

I planned to have an epidural, largely because of fears about internals - I finally got one after 12 hours of very slow and painful labour. It mostly worked, but left some painful spots - and I think it did help slow down an already slow labour though it's impossible to know for sure. Everything stalled and I ended up with a CS after another non-dilating 12 hours.

While having the epi put in, I had gas and air and was really surprised how effective it was - I loved it. The pain was so bad, I'd assumed G&A wouldn't do much. If there's a next time I'd want to try G&A on its own.

Decided beforehand I would not want pethidine or anyhting that could affect the baby.

Tried TENS at antenatal classes and hated the sensation, so that was out.

my pain relief (2nd time around) was the hot water tap - or rather the hot water coming from the tap, as was an unassisted home birth. Oh and TENS machine prior to getting in the bath, and bach rescue remedy

1st time around, pain relief was gas and air and TENS

I do wonder if the size of DD had anything to do with how much more difficult it was. she was 7lb 3oz the boys were 10lb 2oz and 9lb 10oz respectivly.

DS1 Half a paracetamol, i was 18 i think the midwives thought i'd have hours to go, so ignored me mostly untill he was nearly out

DS2 Gas and air, he was back to back and it hurt!

DD Gas and air, it lasted forever the little minx had her head sitting squint in the birth canal.

I didn't feel i needed anything more with any of them, although some attention when labouring with DS1

I had PE with my first PG and was drugged up to the eyeballs and couldnt feel a thing!

Between contractions, which I couldnt feel, everyone else geared up to it and I sat there - pushing - and then asked the MW during the contraction if she was going home yet or staying with me for the duration! Everyone laughed but I thought it was relevant!!

DS1 and I were quite ill afterwards and it took a long time to get back to normal.

With ds2 I gave birth in Italy and NO PAIN RELIEF was available - nowt, niente, nada! so as soon as I was offered a waterbirth I went for it and it was fab! I was fine and ds was fine and we went home after 3 days and the recovery was much speedier than first time round.

Tens machine and gas and air (what a wonderful invention that stuff is!) only - no time for anything else, and no real need as it was all so quick.