To think I was over-drugged for giving birth?

[Purplegras3]

How much anaesthetic did you have giving birth? Looking back now I think I was super over-medicated and it did me no favours bonding with my baby. For the first week after birth I was like a glazed zombie until the drugs left my system. I had 8 epidurals, mountains of gas & air and some other drug I can't remember the name of. I was full-on hallucinating that I was in my favourite tv shows. I couldn't see the room I was in. When the anaesthetist asked me to turn over for another epidural, I asked to whose side was I to turn? And I named the characters I could see around my bed. I could also see my dm at the foot of the bed, naked and standing on a plinth, painted head-to-toe in gold, holding up a bunch of grapes! 😆It's funny looking back but also fucking serious because I couldn't walk for 24hrs after and I couldn't be present to my baby's needs either. Anyone else experience the same as me?

I ended up hallucinating with dc1. I did have a lot of gas & air and at least two shots of an epidural (the 1st one provided no pain relief, no clue where the drug went) however I assumed it was exhaustion/dehydration which was to blame. Ds was eventually evicted 81 hours after my waters broke and I hadn't slept for a good 15 hours before that point. So basically close to 100 hours without sleep (got the odd 10 minutes between contractions but nothing more than that).

I thought there was a giant yellow snake wrapped around my leg. Got some very funny looks when I warned the student midwife about it.

Didn't bond with ds but I think that was down to passing out during my emcs and then thinking he was a doll for the first month.

You control the gas and air, it wears off within seconds of not using it so I don’t see how it can make you so out of it.
I’ve never had an epidural but they don’t stop you being lucid do they? I’ve never heard that. Why did you have 8?
I guess it must have been the third thing, the name of which you can’t remember, that made you hallucinate. It will be in your notes, I’m sure you can ask someone to find out for you if it’s something you want to avoid in the future.

Labour itself, even without medication/ drugs, can make time seem very strange and make you misremember things. It’s very common for women to think one thing happened when actually it wasn’t like that. You didn’t have 8 epidurals. It’s not medically a thing. Ask for a birth debrief if you feel you need one.

Pethidine - that's the other drug, I couldn't remember the name. I don't know how others had their epidural administered but every time the anaesthetist came in I had to roll over on my side for him to do it. I couldn't roll over, they had to roll me over. Yes, I guess you'd say they were top-ups. It only worked down one side of my body, the other side was in severe pain and my labour was long. I was flat on my back the whole time. I wish I'd been encouraged to move but I guess I was too spaced out to move.

I absolutely did have 8. One line in my back and 8 top-ups

An epidural won’t cause you to hallucinate, although that may depend on if there was an opiate in the bag alongside the local anaesthetic, I don’t know what they use in maternity.

Gas and air can cause you to feel dizzy, sick, light headed and drowsy. It wears off quickly though. Opiates can make you hallucinate.

That happened to me with epidural. It worked for a while and was heaven then it wore off down one side. He came back and tried to readjust it. I shld have got him to take it out and put it in again. Not sure if that's what they were trying to do with you.

I didnt think you could move if you had an epidural?

I absolutely did have 8. One line in my back and 8 top-ups

This doesn't make sense. Yes you can have top ups but there couldn't have been an anaesthetist coming in administering 8 separate new epidurals 😳

The effects of any of the pain relief are not lasting. Gas & air wears off as soon as you stop taking it; epidural just numbs the area & you will be mobile in c12 hours & the only one that's likely to cause hallucinations & linger is the pethidine but that's still very time-limited.

Labour itself, even without medication/ drugs, can make time seem very strange and make you misremember things.

This certainly rings true for me. I only had gas and air because my labour progressed very quickly. I’ve mentioned a few things about the birth and my husband, who was obviously lucid, would tell me it had happened differently or not happened at all. He also mentioned things that I just cannot remember. I’m sure it’s part of nature’s process to zone you out a bit, just enough to forget how bad it is so that you’re happy to do it more than once!

They roll you over to check the epidural site. NOT to give you another one. For one it’s impossible to put an epidural in while you’re lying down.

I read an entire imaginary newspaper on pethedine, I am not sure to this day if I held it up in front of me, I hope not, it would have looked weird. A concert sounds more fun, though rock rather than rap for me.

Top ups are not epidurals. You had 1 epidural that was topped up.

Epidurals also don’t cause hallucinations.

Those saying you can't have more than one epidural, I had 3 with my first. None worked, all in different areas of my spine and then a spinal block in theatre. So it is possible

I had a long labour and when it was getting near the time to push they let the epidural wear off a bit, at that point I could have gas and air to take the edge off the pain. Prior to the epidural I did have diamorphine but was recommended the epidural after that wore off.

After DS1, I needed stitches and it was quicker for the dr to give me a local anaesthetic and tell me to inhale very deeply on the entonox to get the job done. I had very vivid hallucinations. At the time, I would have sworn everything i was imagining was real - it involved the dr, dh and the procedure. But I was absolutely out of it.

Gas and air absolutely could give you those vivid hallucinations if no one was monitoring your use. While it's easy to say you're in control and therefore can stop, once you get to the hallucination point, you're really not in control anymore and need someone to step in to stop you inhaling more.

In combination with your epidural @Purplegras3, are you sure it was medication overload for a week and not the effects of what sounds like a difficult labour - especially if you needed a few top ups of epidural in conjunction with other pain relief. Most of the drugs would have been out of your system within 24 hours, although were you also on oral painkillers post birth. And on top of that, you're likely on a busy ward getting little sleep while trying to tend to a newborn. The lack of sleep alone is enough to challenge the hardiest of mothers.

I'm an anaesthetic nurse and you must be mistaken. There is no way on Gods green earth you were given 8 epidurals. It's not physically possible. They may well have been turning you to either check the site or to try and get the epidural
coverage to drift over and even out. The hallucinations may have been either the gas and air or the pethadine. Defo try and speak to PALS. They will be able to arrange a debrief for you and go over exactly what you were given and when.

You had 3 failed epidurals. Once an epidural is in it’s in. An epidural can only be administered into the epidural space so it won’t be in different parts of your spine but probably not inserted correctly.

They may have had three attempts but only one epidural. Once they have the line in they wouldn't resite it.

I wouldn't say you were over-drugged. It's quite hard to be in hospitals. I would say you reacted to the drugs, labour and sleep deprivation (combo effect) by hallucinating.
I'd say 'glazed zombie' is pretty normal post-birth for many!

Well, I wanted to give birth with just gas and air, but then everything had to be sped up as DD wasn't making progress. So I asked for an epidural and went through having the line put in but it was too late and I was ready to push. So then I was just using gas and air and then they took that away from me too, to make me concentrate and I ended up giving birth with no pain relief - I think I'd have rather had the epidural, 8 top ups and the hallucinations.

I had pethadine with my first and I thought I was Shanie Twain shaking my hips around the delivery suite thinking I was in a music video!

I didn’t have an epidural but did also have gas and air. I felt absolutely euphoric after giving birth like I had taken on the world/discovered the secret of life. Don’t feel it negatively impacted bonding with my baby but if it did for you, it might be something you should speak to someone about.

Sounds like the pethidine. I went over and over a piano scale where the notes were the first letters of family members names and was running through scales over and over again. Tried to explain it to the midwife and my husband and I knew from their faces I was wasted! The birth reflections service sounds like a good idea for you, someone will go through everything that happened and when so it's more clear in your mind. I found it helped me after a traumatic birth.

I've no idea how many top ups I had, but the anaesthetist refused to give me any more as he said I'd had the max. I certainly didn't have any hallucinations. I didn't have much in the way of gas and air though as I completely lost any element of being in control on it, so was better without it.

I had weird auditory hallucinations in labour. I think it was the pethidine. Also I had so much gas and air my throat hurt for ages afterwards. All that and it still hurt like fuck.