Anyone else refused pain-relife in Labour?

[socdiss]

With my second child I had to beg for pain relife and it was only given in the end by a kind trainee midwife mush to the disgust of the main midwife. I was told 12 hours before my son was born that it was to late for an epidural and refused any further pain relife apart from gas and air for the final 4 hours of labour. My friend had a simler experiance at our local hospital. Anyone else been through this, when I had my daughter they gave me what I wanted but this has left me to scared to have another child incase the same thing happens again.

Hi Socdiss, I'm sorry this has happened to you. Unfortunately this happens a lot, there is a whole thread called "anyone tricked out of epidural?" (parts 1 and 2) which deals with similar experiences - just scroll down the page in the Childbirth section. I was denied pain relief too so I can relate.

If you feel too traumatised to have another child maybe you would find it useful to contact the Birth Trauma Association. If you go on their website you will also find information on counselling, birth plans following birth trauma, etc.

I hope the bad memories will fade with time.

I know this isn't quite what you wanted to hear but I thought it was worth mentioning, if nothing else, to illustrate that every hospital seems to be completely different. I had the opposite to you: I was given an epidural that I didn't even ask for. It wasn't against my will, it was just that I struggled a lot with a VE which I think revealed that I was about 2cm, but I was happy to carry on with G&A but my mw suggested an epi and I just went with it.

I guess the thing with mine was that I find VE so very, very difficult that the mw assumed that if I can't do a VE, I definitely wouldn't be able to cope with a contraction. Which isn't quite right because they're quite different feelings but at the end of the day I was happy about the epi (although it didn't work properly and I still needed constant G&A along with the partially working epi).

Sorry I can't be more help but I thought a response that isn't quite what you wanted would be better than no response.

I had an epidural with my first baby,which i was grateful for as he had to be manually rotated and forceps and stitched up.

when i had my second i booked in for an epidural,but by the time i got to the hospital they said i was too late,and to my suprise i managed fine with just gas and air,and some pethedine,so when i had another 2,i didnt ask for the epidural,just drained the gas supplies..

but i think it is unfair if you cant cope with the pain and they dont give you anything,could you maybe find out exactly what the hospitals policy is on pain relief.

i was recently in with daughter when she gave birth,as she didnt want an epidural,she is terrified of needles,she went on the midwife led unit,which dont do epidurals.BUT..if you change you mind and cant cope with the pain and decide on an epidual,they move you to another ward which does them,maybe your hospital might do something like this.

someone made the point elsewhere that if men had the babies there would be an anaesthetist permanently on standby in every mat. ward and that in no other area of medicine are patients allowed to be in that much pain for that long - but hey, its natural so we should just get on with it!

I reckon a name and shame needs to be started.
Anyone up for naming the bad hospitals - a bit of adverse publicity might concentrate their minds!

I was refused an epidural after 27 HOURS of labour, even though my contractions were every 60-90 seconds - this was because I was only 1cm dilated (!!) so they didn't want to slow things down (what, slower than they already were?). By this stage, I'd already had G&A, TENS and pethadine.

My DH calmly took midwife out of room, and explained that if they did not sort me out now, that he would bury them, and that they would never hear then end of him.

They gave me an epidural 15 mins later. What they should have done is given me a CS, but hey, they said "sorry" afterwards so that makes it fine, doesn't it?