To think women should be free to choose whatever pain relief in labour suits them without having to consider the environment

[FannyCann]

A colleague brought this article in to work today and it made me furious.

Apparently if women in labour would base their choice of analgesia in labour on the environment they should choose an epidural which has a far lower carbon footprint.
Using Entonox for four hours is the equivalent of driving 850 miles whilst an epidural is equivalent to just four.

It just reads like male doctors scolding women for wanting a simple safe form of pain relief when instead they could burn up manpower resources by demanding epidurals. They haven't considered where all the anaesthetists are meant to come from to provide epidurals for all!

Three female obstetric anaesthetists quite rightly responded in the letters that mothers shouldn't be guilt tripped about their choice of analgesia in labour.

Gas and air in labour ‘harms the planet’.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3d011450-e354-11ec-8bdd-c253e043f5f0?shareToken=3d20235d87acf65d1bda38d59ef587e11_

I mean it would be more environmentally friendly not to replace peoples joints when they wear out, or replace peoples organs if they need transplants. Chemotherapy is terrible for the environment, as are waste products from mri scanners etc....

Its one thing to do the research to understand the impacts and come up with medical improvements. Its another to suggest women should should be told to choose their pain relief personally based on the environmental impact, as suggested by the times article.

Especially given, as per the article, the gas and air used in labour isnt as environmentally damging as anasthetic gases used in different medical situations succh as in operating theatres. But in those situations it is implied that medical professionals will come up with alternative solutions.

Its only pregnant women who are expected to have to consider this.

If an ex smoker doesnt need to care about the environmental impact of their chemotherapy for lung cancer then why the fuck should pregnant women be expected to directly make decisions based on it.

Every sector, organisation, industry and community needs to plan how to get to net zero, the first step is to measure the carbon footprint of every product and process. Health care is going to be really tough to decarbonise and this is a start.

I'd also be really cautious of the interpretation by some of the media, particularly those with a strong political bias.

What I do find a bit sinister here is that moves to improve scavenging are all being sold in terms of the non-zero but tiny impact on climate change, and the very real impact of leaked nitrous oxide on midwives' health is being tucked away deep in the small print.

It's almost as if they don't want every midwife with fertility problems to sue the life out of them.

Again, there are ways to mitigate the impact. Every company should have to treat/recycle/reuse its own waste and preferably on site; we should have implemented that decades ago but many industries were resistant and no Govt wanted to challenge them.

It's not about choices as though it's an a la carte menu that you're browsing at your leisure between contractions. It's about grabbing the intervention you need when you need it.

One baby would not have come out if I hadn't been able to grab a few hours rest. The other baby would not have come out if I hadn't been able to deeply breathe and keep calm during the entire event.

In both circumstances, neither girl would have come out without scalpel or forceps unless I'd been able to kneel upright and lean forward.

Can't do that very well with an epidural.

Also have two different friends whose epidurals took on just one side. So they still needed extra pain relief because the lower footprint one didn't work that well!

Curious to know who funded the Dutch analysis. It's well known that the emphasis on personal carbon footprint is promoted by the oil industry, so that it can pass the buck on its responsibilities.

Wonder why The Times went with the CO2e emissions angle rather than that, then...

Where do we stop?
Why do we always attack women? Maternity services are a tiny fraction of the bigger picture.

The whole healthcare sector is full of single use plastics, wrapped up in single use plastics...

Its only pregnant women who are expected to have to consider this.

Not really, my best friend just got her hip replaced and she chose a more expensive ceramic implant over a traditional polyethylene (plastic) implant for environmental reasons.

I dont understand this, though. Surely he had seen women labouring in all states of distress prior to his wife giving birth. It seems strange that his empathy and professionalism only went up a notch after seeing someone he loved in pain. Just think it's a bit odd that he only had some kind of epiphany at the birth if his own child.

I don't think it's intended as an attack, but there's a cultural context regarding women's pain, cross cultural really. And it's a man doing the framing and talking here. It's quite understandable that women react with suspicion. Neither the medical profession nor patriarchy in general have done anything to deserve the benefit of the doubt on this.

In fairness I did put a space between paragraphs here so it wasnt a block of text but that is taking my words out if the context of the sentence above.

My point was that gas and air is less environmentally impactful than other gases which are used in, for example from the article, operating theatres. But, according to the article, in operating theatres medical and scientific professionals will work together to come up with solutions. But pregnant women will be expected to choose their health care with the environment in mind, no one else in the context of anasthetic

I guess my point, which may not have been clearly made is:

Gas and air is easily available
Epidurals are not always due to lack of staff

No one else is getting told 'when you go into surgery you can have freely available pain relief with lower risks, but its bad for the environment, or you can have a different type with higher risks and theres no guarantee it will work properly or that you will even get it at all but its better for the environment '

Its more akin to being told 'you can choose a more environmentally friendly replacement joint but theres a possibility when you come round from surgery your hip wont have been replaced because we didnt have the specialist staff needed so you will be sent home in pain, but yay go environmentally friendly...'

Or when you go into the operating room you may or may not get given an anastheitc depending on whether we have someone trained in the more environmentally friendly version available, but you have to have the surgery or you can have a definitely available anasthetic but its less environmentally friendly, who would go for the first option...

By definition he won't have seen how long a half hour wait for the anaesthetist feels when you've only called because you've reached the limits of your endurance.

Well by the time I got to hospital I was at 10cm and ready to push. I could only have gas and air at that point, and jolly glad I was of it too. Choice doesn't always come into it!

2 words; fuck that.

How many gas and air portions equates to a flight on a private jet?