Is this normal it seems barbaric

[Streppy]

Woman next to me in hospital is contracting has been all night but not far gone enough so they are sending her home for a bit. She’s been screaming crying all night every ten minutes and throwing up. They have reluctantly offered her some morphine during the night but she’s still been screaming. I’m due to give birth soon currently in for observation and I can’t believe how they can leave her in this much pain is this normal. Her partner has had to be with her all night to try help her is this going to be what I have in store she’s been like this since yesterday afternoon/evening why aren’t they giving her pain relief it seems barbaric she’s asking for relief and they’ve offered paracetamol. My birthing plan was basically pain relief and not to have much pain I’m so worried now about giving birth.

I don't think the horror stories help, but it's possible to give a positive story without slagging off a woman in pain. Would you say that to a woman's face if she said she struggled in labour? Because countless women have read that comment today, and you probably made some of them feel like shit.

(And no, not me, I happily had two babies by section without experiencing labour.)

@Destiny123 out of interest, why are codeine derivatives only for prior to active labour?

Converts to morphine in mum and we tend to avoid anything that has potential respiratory depressant effects being transferred to baby via the cord, when coming up to delivery (it's v tiny tiny levels still)

the default stronger options for active labour are pethidine or diamorphine dependent on the hospital and remifentanil patient controlled button's if the unit offers them and mum meets criteria (ultrashort acting opiate given iv, good for people on their 2nd/3rd + baby that labour quickly, not great for first time mums where their body is yet to have practiced labour before, so it often loses its benefit and they get epidurals

Tbh I'm not entirely sure at which points in labour each are stopped, as I don't have a huge role in early labour, but the midwives and obstetricians will be able to tell you

(For intrauterine deaths we use iv morphine for labour as it gives longer stronger pain relief but the risk to baby is unfortunately no longer there)

I went through full labour to 10cm with just paracetamol because the midwives didn't believe I was in established labour I wasn't allowed in the birthing pool as I "wasn't in labour" so I went through transition, in a bath, on paracetamol.. I wasn't screaming though. I think the problem was I'd done hypnobirthing so I seemed really calm.

This 100 times over.

Silly women being all
Hysterical. Gout is worse you know

@geosmin are sterile water injections proven to be useless then? They did F. All for me!

Theyre not as homeopathy as they sound..v commonly used in oz. I've had an anaesthetic mate have it for her baby over there and actually said was really helpful. It works similar to tens machines - there's a thing called gate control of pain theory so your brain struggles to experience pain and other sensations at the same time (like vibration etc.. same way rubbing stops pain when you've bashed yourself

Sorry following on from this, as can't edit. The bigger thing is with codeine rather than dihydrocodeine (latter is safe for breast feeding, former isnt)... as codeine metabolism is unpredictable - some people hypermetabolise and some barely metabolise it - so some get no pain relief at all from it, others are v drowsy and it's 'over' effective... which makes it dangerous to transmit to baby, as you don't know who has what genetics and can make baby super drowsy (there's been neonatal deaths in America from it hence it's not to be prescribed

We only today had a baby come in today intermittently stopping breathing and found out the mum was taking codeine so had to opiate reverse the baby

Thanks @Destiny123 that's really interesting. I think I was given dihydrocodeine in 'early labour' on the antenatal ward (it was something oral that wasn't paracetamol, can't think what else it would have been). Only I wasn't exactly in early labour as I have precipitous births so I actually ended up giving birth about 20 minutes later. DS was really sleepy so wondered if that might have contributed, but it sounds like that wouldn't have been the case.

Sorry OP for the slight derail there! But just to reiterate that all labours are different, just try to stay calm and advocate for yourself, and prep your birth partner to advocate for you.

Most likely, unless it was a sickly sweet liquid in a syringe? -oromoroph (liquid morphine)

Dihydrocodeine can make baby sleepy too as still converts to morphine, but the benefit is the metabolism is predictable, unlike codeine, so if mum is more sleepy need to keep a close eye on baby as are likely to also be a bit sleepy

Can’t you have an epidural when you want one? Here in Australia if you are in a private hospital you can basically have one as soon as you’re in labour so there’s very little pain at all.

As per previous provided no contraindications anyone can have one, once in active labour (over 4cm) as long as we are free and not in the emergency theatre doing a csection. Hence if you know you want one it's better to ask in the day when there's many of us, as nights there's often only 1 anaesthetist for labour ward and often spend most of the night in theatre. Most of the time we meet the national target of within 30mins of request though

@Destiny123 it was definitely a tablet so I assume dihydrocodeine. They did tell me what it was at the time but as I went from 5 cm to fully dilated and pushing in a single contraction a few minutes later, oddly enough I didn't retain all the details 😂

Sounds very like she's having a spastic uterous. My child has significant additional needs because this wasn't spotted by the midwives. I didn't progress and I was screaming for 12 hrs straight. Has the head consultant pediatrician seen here? it's a very rare complication maybe 1/4000 women will have it, and very few will have a disabled kid because of it.

My local hospital offer diamorphine instead of pethidine.

This is barbaric and not fair on anyone. Plus the lack of privacy goes against the birthing process - for everybody!
It baffles me that open wards exist, I know they’d argue there’s a lack of space in UK hospitals, but really? They just seem to do no one any good, apart from maybe the staff? But it’s not about them…

I’m not at all a sucky sort of person, but labour contractions made me vomit….they should offer anti emetics….but they don’t unless you ask for them. Asked in my second labour….friggin magic injection!

I mean sicky!

Yes ‘you’ll spend most of your labour on a ward labouring behind a paper curtain, while other women and their husbands are inches away’ wasn’t mentioned in NCT.

How is your labour going OP?

I only used a TENS machine and warm baths.

However, I've been in hospital with the minimum of pain relief next to someone screaming and crying with the same condition as I was. Some people can't manage any pain at all and some are addicted to pain relief. Don't judge a hospital by the way they manage the pain relief of others - judge by how they treat you!

It's mad but hospital maternity care is really bad at the moment. I always found the midwives to be great but they are so over worked and don't have enough beds for the people who need them. I was having labour pains with my first born for 3 days. They were lasting for hours and were 2-4 minutes apart and hurt a lot. They sent me home after 3 days as I was only 3cm and 39 weeks. I live in northern Ireland and the hospital is 50 minutes away from my house. They didn't check me before discharging me and my pains would stop for an hour then start again for 6/7 hours. I was getting in the car in the hospital carpark and my waters broke and I gave birth to my daughter outside the maternity ward, literally 10 minutes after. Thank god I didn't make it home. I was discharged 7 hours later but had to sit outside the ward for nearly 3 hours with my newborn waiting for my anti d injection. It's just part of the NHS now as soon as you don't need the bed you get discharged. When I was on the ward there was a woman crying next to me as her baby was really ill in NICU. I think they would normally separate mums with sick babies and them in labour or just back from giving birth but again there weren't enough beds.

My daughter in law was recently in labour for 40+ hours. Dr came and said he'd leave her for a couple more and she insisted on a section. She's a nursing sister so had a bit of clout. I dread to think what the outcome may have been if she'd waited. I now have a healthy, happy, beautiful grandson. Morphine does sound a bit extreme though.

Sadly very normal. For some reason (institutional misogyny) midwives are very reluctant to dish out pain relief in labour. I was in absolute agony vomiting throughout with my first for 24 hours before they’d allow an epidural, honestly I would have killed myself to end it. Baby was back to back. Second labour was 18 hours and I didn’t even take a paracetamol.

the best advice I heard was ‘yes it’s painful, but it’s your body doing what it needs to, it’s not a worrying pain’. definitely look into hypno birthing, I was totally zoned out, it really helped. Plus the gas and air was wonderful, it makes you feel a bit sick at first but stick with it, you get past that

Said by someone who had a birth that facilitated this!

I’ve had different births. A back to back where I laugh my head off at ‘not a worrying pain’, I would have honestly killed myself to make it stop if I had of been physically capable. No idea how I could have ‘zoned out’ although at one point I did have complete dissociation due to the horrendous pain. Other births I’ve had, not that painful at all and not ‘worrying pain’ as such and zoning out wouldn’t have been an issue.

It’s a bit rich for someone to come on a birthing forum and make out all births can be like theirs though. All births are different, even births with the same mother with the same capabilities.

Pain relief in Labour isn't as simple as that. It's not like when you break your leg so they offer morphine. Morphine can lead to the baby being sleepy and having difficulty with breathing and then breast feeding. She might have written on her birth plan that she didn't want pain relief so they were probably trying to help her stick to that. Obviously gas and air is a given, they will give that.

Worst practice is for them to offer pain relief without you asking because you are weak and vulnerable so could be suggestive. You need to know what you want in advance and be informed as to the side effects. You need a birth partner who knows when you have reached your threshold. The next step up is an epidural which is quite invasive and means you can't move around and leads to worse tearing as you can't feel them coming out. It's also harder to push and can lead to emergency C section.

Giving birth is painful. I was done in 24 hours and my pain was fairly manageable until the end. I didn't go to hospital until 3 hours before giving birth. My sister was in Labour for 4 days and was in really bad pain for nearly the whole time, vomiting etc. She wouldn't have been able to have morphine for that whole time and there's no way she would have wanted an epidural. The idea is that when you are in a calm home environment the labour might progress more quickly than if you are in hospital so they send you home as there's not much they can do.

Have you don't any antenatal classes? They have them on YouTube if it's too late to join a class. I think you need it.