AIBU - to be really pissed off that epidurals are being restricted?

[christmasmum]

Was just reading an article in Mother and Baby magazine saying that epidurals are classed as an 'abnormal birth' and that they should be restricted in the future to avoid women having caesareans.

What is this all about? Why should women not be free to make their own decision on pain relief, while being aware of the risks involved in every form of pain relief? And is it not the case that women having diffcult births in the first place are more likely to BOTH have an epidural AND end up having a c-section anyway??

Before giving birth to my DD I bought into all the information from the NCT, books and magazines etc and was determined to go for a 'natural' birth. I ended up being induced and despite being told by every woman I have ever spoken to who has been induced, that I should have an epidural the midwife advised me that I would not need one. After 10 hours of intense contractions and finding out I was a huge 2cm dilated I decided enough was enough and had an epidural.

I was instantly relaxed and started to actually enjoy the process, 2 1/2 hours later (despite the consultant arriving to prep me for a c-section) I found out I was fully dilated and delivered my wee girl after 5 minutes of pushing to a room that was full of people laughing and singing Christmas carols.

I obviously only have my own experience to go by but I am absolutely convinced that the relaxing effect of being out pain helped me deliver my baby naturally.

What is this pressure on women to be in pain and suffering to be 'real women'. And why is that every new Dad I've spoken to with wives who did not have pain releif seem so proud of them? Is this just another example of male oppression of women? Even subliminally??

AAGGGHHHHH. Rant over.

I think Unicornvomit has struck a sensible balance...

But people are educated about the risks. Ante natal classes talk of nothing else.

TBH the people who made a difference to my birth outcome were the anaesathist and surgical team.

There is no doubt that women need to know the risks attached to high level intervention techniques in order to make informed choices. This site gives some information on both the benefits and risks of epidurals.

Yes I am older and had a relatively painless labour [7 hours and some g&a] but at the end of the day it needs to be remembered that the female body has evolved to cope with giving birth and a normal labour is not a medical condition! I don't know what modern delivery rooms now offer but once you're strapped down to monitors etc. it removes the chance of being upright, mobile, and working with gravity. Squatting is the best way for a normal birth to proceed and AIMS still offers excellent advice to pregnant women on all aspects of pregnancy, labour and their legal rights.

No labour isn't painless, it can be very painful and of course when a woman is in acute distress then she needs something to help her deal with the pain, but I do tend to disagree with this rush to make everything in life absolutely painless!

I think we need to educate people about how much it actually bloody really hurts.

A lot of the other women in my pre-birth group were asking really questions such as "can I bring in my oil burner?" and "nelly furtado or dido?".

I have read a large number of these threads on childbirth/pain relief.

KathyBrown you have my vote for judgemental/smuggery on a childbirth thread award.

maggie at our ante-natal classes we were told we had to talk about "discomfort, not pain. we don't use the p-word"

I'm fine with educating women about the risks of epidurals but they should not be denied one if that's what they request.

That's ridiculous Lovely. I'd have refused to use anything other than the 'p word'. Actually I'd have been tempted to jab her with a sharp pointy object, or jump on her foot and say when she screamed''now that didn't hurt, it was just uncomfortable''

'Yes because if I can manage so can everyone else, it really isn't that bad and if you talk to people who've been in car accidents, fires, even gun shot injury's the body's natural adrenaline does a much better job of helping people cope than narcotics which lead to ongoing health issues.'

Trip trap.

People, don't feed the trolls!

I know plenty of people who've been shot, I used to teach literacy to convicts, every one of them said it hurt like a mutha.

KathyBrown - I honestly thought you were joking with your post at first.

The reality was that the midwife would not let me near DW - rubbing her back or not.

Obviously I did not want to get in the midwife's way or interefere with her work so I held back - until I need to intervene. If DW had asked for a back rub I would have of course. I was talking to DW all the time and could see the look of fear cross her face when the midwife said no to an epidural. that was enough for me and she did not need to say more. I did it for her.

You don't know my DW and whether she wanted pain relief. I did.

Exactly Lovely!! what with this 'discomfort' talk (instead of saying, listen up folks, this is going to hurt..) coupled with reluctance to give an epidural..... it leads to a lot of shocked, traumatised women.

Rubbing my back, yeah, that would have really done a lot for pain relief.

I had DD2 with no pain relief because I got to hospital too late.

I still have nightmares and flashbacks about the pain I felt from that.

maggie spot on, the whole thing is very peculiar...

If my trust starts enforcing the no-epi rule, I simply won't have a second child because I'll be too terrified.

My absolute worst nightmare is being stuck in agony, with God-complex medical staff withholding pain relief they could easily give.

Actually, it's my second worst nightmare - the worst one is having all that, while some self-righteous smug gimmer tells me that it's Nature's Way.

Sheesh.

I think I would have been less traumatised afterwards if I'd been told honestly beforehand, yes it IS going to hurt like mad but you'll get through it.

How did the midwives keep a striaght face when we sat there asking if we could bring in whale music and oil burners??? They knew. We didn't!!! The whole class was a crazy farce looking back on it!!

Kathy, now I see your point, and I am myself, for myself, in teh camp of no epidural and as natural as possible, etc...

however, the experience a woman has during birth is very individual, and not just from woman to woman, but also with each Baby they Birth....it certainly was true for myself, and I don't think I am unusual in that.

yes, I agree resources should be used more for better staffing, etc...and the hospitals policies need to be overhowled in order to be more woman centred.... but currently to jsut go and say, well, we reduce the availability of Epidurals is simply not an option....first , as I said in my first post, it has to be researched and considered why women have Epidurals, and look at what might have changed them needeing an Epidural and than that needs to be addressed...

And tbh, with my 3rd child, who was menat to be my Homebirth, I was all ready for Birth and a positive expeirence...I was so well informed, my midwive was supportive....but, tbh, it was the worst experience in my life...that labour was the most painful labour I have ever experienced....the Pain was so full on from the start...this was due to the position of my son...sadly than things went all a bit tits up....but, tbh, gas and air barely touched the pain that time...and with my other 2 sons I laboured naturally and only used gas and air the last hour...but, god, with them it was all not half as painful...so, that made a big difference...

I couldn't have gas and air as I have asthma. THat was on my notes. Bastards should have given me an epi.

Good point CrackFox - when was it decided that G&A and pethidine/diamorph are more 'natural' than epidural?
Surely it should be a case of deciding the most appropriate method of pain relief based on how the patient experiences the pain - not how she 'should' be feeling according to the textbooks or some value judgement that asking for help means you are not trying hard enough.

I was hated by the woman at ante natal as I was not interested in whale music.

She was so nasty to DH and I that we had to stop going. I think she saw me as a troublemaker because I asked questions like, what happens if you have an epidural, what happens if you need a CS, what can you do to avoid BF being painful initially?

I got glared at a lot.

I am all in favour of education (as long as it tells the truth, as others on this thread have said).

BUT surely it's the wrong way round to restrict the pain relief first? Surely, if you were serious about providing a better way, you'd put the back-up in place first?

Because otherwise it does just look like a thin excuse for cost-cutting.

It's all coming back to me now! Loads of talk about parking and having enough change ready for the parking metres! and packing cereal bars and lip balm ... Cheeez!!

Why is it that child birth is the only time when pain without pain relief is acceptable? For all other areas of medicine, pain relief is a priority. Why not child birth? Why are women expected to experience hours and even days of unbearable pain witout adequate pain relief, and the pain relief that is available is associated with side effects and interventions.

I don't understand why we accept this.

If men were the ones to give birth....

true belgo, and women push for this bizarre mindset. Most men would say, if it hurts yeah, take whatever drugs you're offered.

That's all that anyone focus' on the bloody energy drinks and it's woefully inadequate so lets spend our time and money on teaching people that your birth will be nothing like everything you've seen on TV, you will not be lying on the bed with your legs in the air screaming, you'll be in a birth pool or sitting on a ball to give yourself a fighting chance of opening your pelvis, all this information is available and yet people get to hospital and it all goes out the window.
Why that's what we should all be asking ?

Clearly we should be asking for our right to have epidurals, as that's being quoshed. It's not for you to say what the rest of us should be askign for.