Gas and air during birth

[Saju1]

Once I was in active labour, I was told I could have anything I wanted. So I said I wanted a water birth with gas and air. Throughout my pregnancy, I told them this is what I wanted.

So when I was in active labour, and the pains were really bad, I would take the gas and air, and the midwife kept telling me to not puff in so many times, and would take it off of me. This made me really frustrated, and I started panicking and breathing even faster, and my baby had meconium while I was in the bath.

I don't know why my baby had meconium, but I am thinking it was because I couldn't cope with the pain, and me not breathing deep enough due to the pain, and not having gas and air when I wanted.

Was this allowed? I just see so much news about this and I'm not sure. Also, do you think this is related to my baby passing meconium?

Thank you

Contact your midwife/maternity unit and have a debrief. They will be able to answer all of your specific questions. I don't think this had anything to do with your baby passing meconium.

No, the meconium is unrelated to your breathing

Your midwife should have told you how to use the entonox effectively. We encourage long slow breaths during contraction then fresh air when contraction has subsided to clear your head.
Entonox taken rapidly like you describe can make you feel nauseous and even vomit. She was probably removing it to try and prevent this but she went about it the wrong way.
The baby passing meconium is unrelated to breathing.
Congratulations tho.

Thank you :)

Yep the meconium won't be related in that way, but can be a reason to stop g&a in some cases. It's use can in some circumstances slow down a labour and reduce force of contractions. The midwives won't have withheld it for no reason/want you to be in pain, they just want to get baby out safely ASAP.

Slightly aside, but several units have withdrawn g&a completely at present as there are some new safety concerns (continual exposure may be harmful to staff), but if they had it for you to use then obv not a factor here.

@SleepyRich this might also be the reason my placenta didn't come out naturally. I had to have a manual removal.

Thank you so much