How many of you got a headache or other complications after an epidural

[Marabou]

Sorry all, I seem to be hawking this forum at the moment..

Was just watching another baby programme and the lady, who just gave birth and had an epidural is suffering from a horrible headache. I had planned to have an epidural despite having heard of the possible side effects, but was wondering how many of you had this or any other complications after having had an epidural.

Many thanks!

I'm of the belief you can't really plan your birth as most people I know who had a caesarian, didn't plan one.
I had a epidural it offered some respite, eventually had vaginal birth, try not to think about it too much, birth is such a small part of a huge life changing event.
But if you are interested totally can recommend, anti natal swimming and anti natal pregnancy for some relaxation tips and mummy network building.

Thanks for your reply. I know I'm getting a bit panicky the nearer it comes :(.. I hope afterwards I'll totally forget about it with a brand new baby in the house..

I had the post spinal headache. It was immense however faded within a few days, but tbh after my lovely water birth ended up with an emcs and stay in high dependency I didn't even think to bring it up with the anaesthetist afterwards. It didn't compare to the comprehensive feeling of physical fragility I felt after my section and a big haemorrhage. Hells bells it took me a day to even realise I was hooked up to a catheter. TBH it was only the heart monitor going ping that really got may attention. You can only plan your birth so much - I did the yoga and the swimming right up to the day I went into labour. Sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. If you do get a spinal headache and you're well enough to be really bothered by it you can ask the anaesthetist to inject a tiny bit of blood into the hole the epi went into and it goes away really quickly... called a blood patch apparently. Someone helpfully told me that when DS was about 4 months old.

I think the biggest epidural complication, potentially, is that for reasons unknown it can cause some babies heartrate to become very, very depressed and plummet rapidly. It's for that reason you need to be continously monitored after you have an epi and a mw has to stay in the room with you for the rest of your labour. Very rare though, but scary.

p.s it all melts away when you get your first smile. . Bring on all the beautiful firsts!

My first baby was with epidural, was amazing. Long labour, heart rate dropped then regained a few times, born with ventouse but healthy baby and happy mummy.

Second baby, no pain relief. Not by choice. Amazing high afterwards but endured labour with lots of baths thinking i had an infection. Epidural was the plan!

Third baby, couldn't decide. Ended up at hospital after two days of pre-labour... trying to get contractions started properly - they ramped up v quickly. Hard to keep still, had forgotten to eat anything too. Epidural didn't work brilliantly but was then stuck in crap position . Lovely anaesthetist re-sited it but strong dose, blood pressure dropped, lost oxygen etc. Hideous but PAIN-FREE for two hours or so. So no regrets. I think. Wore off for pushing which was fab for me cos I could feel it. That was my plan, sort of. Baby was fine... Two days later got the horrible spinal headache and ended up back in hospital (with baby, establishing bfing lying down!). Anaesthetist i think felt guilty but was lovely and talked loads to me and did blood patch which was grim but worked.

Fourth imaginary baby?? Would i have epidural? Probably. But water is AMAZING pain relief, and MAKE SURE YOU EAT BEFOREHAND.

Had epidural, found out I react badly to epidurals - spent next 20hrs throwing up, couldn't eat or drink, blood pressure plummeted, had to have emcs in the end. Not fun!!

oh yes, took much longer to recover after both epidurals... Did the throwing up thing too this time.

Gosh all this makes me think perhaps I should change my birthplan slightly... And I thought I was well prepared and informed about everything when my antenatal classes ended at week 33 !

I had a very positive epidural experience. By that I mean it was sited properly, it included a spinal block which meant I had almost immediate relief from pain, and it worked completely, no pain at all for the rest of the labour. And no side effects afterwards.

Coco, that was my first epidural experience. Just fantastic.

Bizarre question but have you ever had a lumbar puncture? That can help indicate how you'll react to an epidural. In my case I wanted to avoid one at all costs because my lumbar puncture made me sick as a dog for a week.

OTOH my friend who had a lumbar puncture and was fine had an epidural and was fine....

(PS My birth plan was epidural. And that was it!! Agree it's not really something you can plan in detail for. Especially the first time)

Lots and lots of people have fabulous epidurals - people are more likely to come on this thread to tell of their complications. All I would say is make sure you eat beforehand, as I still don't know how I got the energy to push after hours of being starving on epidural. Though i did, somehow!

I've had 2 epidurals with no side effects at all. They were wonderful - I had no pain at all after 15 minutes of them going in. The 2nd was the best though as it was such a low dose that I could feel everything and knew where to push.

Hoping to have one this time round as well.

Marabou, it's just worth remembering that given your thread title, you are going to be hearing almost entirely from people who had headaches or other complications after epidurals. (I see blondpineapple has posted positive experiences).

Nothing wrong with that, that's what you've asked for, so fine!

But do you really want to change your birthplan on that basis? Do you feel you need to do more research to be better informed about the overall risks (isn't there NICE info about the actual percentage of women who get headaches after an epidural?)? Was the programme you saw the first time you were aware that headaches were a known risk?

I do understand the attraction of personal stories, and they can often be helpful. In this instance, I'm not entirely sure what outcome you are hoping for.

After all, if you posted a thread saying 'who has had terrible traumatic births', you would get a lot of women posting about their traumatic births. If you posted a thread asking 'who had a great birth', then you'd get a lot of great birth stories. I'm not sure where that would leave you!

Perhaps it's worth asking your MW or consultant if they can see any reason why you personally might be more prone to a post epidural headache, or asking them what the percentage risk is. It's up to you to weigh up the pros and cons (and as others have said, birth plans frequently go flying out of the window), but you'll want to be making as informed a decision as you can, I imagine.

First birth was natural - horrible experience.

Second birth had an epidural and it was the most chilled out, lovely experience.

No headache, no vomiting, just had dead legs for a few hours.

I've had 3 spinal blocks (2 sections and a hysterectomy) and luckily not experienced any of the headaches at all. Although I did dread it happening, apparently they do a blood patch thingy to stop them .

Marabou I wouldn't change your birth plan. Like Naetha said epidurals are fab. I had a horrible natural birth and an epidural one. Epidural was the best. Worst bit was having to get a bit aggressive with the midwife to get one! I got the 'you're coping so well you can manage' line and things got a bit strained.

Probably because Mn gets lots of readers, if you ask whether people have had headaches, you'll get some who say they have but statitically they are not that common - I think about 98.5% of women don't get headaches.

Three tips

1. Get the epidural before you are climbing the wall in pain. It is much easier for the anaesthetist to place the epidural if you can keep really still and also I understand they are less likely to fail if you have them earlier. Not midwive bashing at all but I honestly did find the MW did her best to delay things.

1. Give birth sitting on your heels - the upright position is believed to reduce the incidence of instrumental deliveries. Again only discovered this from a chance conversation with the anaesthetist - midwife said nothing.

1. Don't allow them to give you pethidine. It will just make you sick and spaced out. One of the great advantages of epidurals is that you can actually see the baby being born with a clear head and not in pain - you actually see them opening their eyes for the first time. Quite a magic moment.

Epis rock:-) Good luck:-)

PS marabou, this info on epidurals from North Bristol NHS says the risk of a headache is 1%.

Here - www.nbt.nhs.uk/pdf/Maternity-Epidural_Anaesthesia_for_pain_relief_in_labourNBT002121.pdf

Hope that helps. I was one of the 99 out of a 100 women who didn't get a headache, FWIW.

I had an epidural (for a reason other than childbirth) and I lost 50% of the feeling below my waist and it didn't come back for years

So I obviously couldn't have an epi while having my two children, and it was fine!

Agree the headache is very rare. I went to a very big teaching hospital and most of the midwives had not seen it before - were asking me lots of questions. Made me feel special !

Ushy - you said "One of the great advantages of epidurals is that you can actually see the baby being born with a clear head and not in pain - you actually see them opening their eyes for the first time. Quite a magic moment." just want to point out that it is not the epidural that does this!!!!!! Birth without an epidural is so much better as far as my experience goes! (1st baby epidural, which I now regret, while second and third no epidural and great births).

galwaygal Sorry didn't mean to imply that epidural birth is better for everyone - just my personal experience although I couldn't possibly have enjoyed seeing the baby open his eyes with the natural birth because I was out of my head in pain:-)

Interested to know, though, why you found the one with the epidural worse? Didn't it work?

Had epidural both times. First time I was left with a truly horrendous headache immediately after the birth and again 5 days later. When I say horrendous I mean debilitating to the point where I was admitted back into hospital the second time as they were worried it might be something more sinister.

Had epidural again with DS2 because of complications and suffered no side effects at all but only had it topped up for a couple of hours whereas the first time it was for about 12 hours.

Hello all and thank you so much for sharing your experiences!

fruitybread, I admit my title obviously asked people to voice out any negative experiences, which is exactly what many have done and this is of course not a very fruitful way to get an objectic view of things. Nevertheless, I am pleased that so many appear to have had very positive experiences with epidurals, which was why I had planned to have one as well.

Today I saw two midwives, just by chance and had the opportunity to discuss my birth plan with both of them and in particular ask questions about epidurals. The first one I saw was very nice, but slightly irritating telling me to keep an open mind (which is fair enough I suppose..) and to not have it, if I feel like I could do without. She raved about how good I'd feel afterwards having done it all on my own, at which point I asked her "surely he epidural won't deliver the baby for me? If you have such a thing sign me up please" ! Ushy, I'm sure this MW would be much like the one you had..

The second MW was extremely helpful and objective and told me to not try to be a hero. She said it was my birth and I was the best person to judge when I was over a certain threshold. She calmly explained the possible side effects of epidurals and which ones of them were more common than others and told me that while the side effects certainly were something to bear in mind, labour alone had several possible complications so in reality, the potential complications with epidurals were no worse than with any major surgery or the like. She also told me that they generally try to make sure any woman, who's had an epidural will be positioned as upright as possible and as you self-administer the drug and control how much of it you have, it may be possible for you to stand, be on all fours etc. if you feel able to.

As I also suffer from severe SPD and have a hypermobile pelvis, I have an appointment with a physio tomorrow to discuss different labouring positions in particular which positions I can be in, if I have an epidural. All in all, I feel much more reassured and confident that whatever happens, it'll be ok and in the end there's a beautiful price awaiting :)!