Is it normal to do ventouse delivery with no pain relief?

[bushymcbush]

I've been thinking a lot about the birth of my 3yo dd lately, because I'm pregnant with dc2.

I was labouring just fine on just a tens machine, but when my waters broke (at 10cm dilated) they had meconium.

I was transferred to another hospital because I was at a midwife led unit. On arrival, the doc decided he wanted the baby delivered asap in case there was distress. I can't remember if the heart rate decelerated or not. It's all a bit of a blur.

By this time I had gas and air as well as the tens. The insertion of the ventouse was the single most excrutiating part of the whole labour - far worse than the strongest contractions.

I was just wondering if this is normally done without offering more effective pain relief?

I was told I had to have a ventouse delivery as ds's heart rate was dropping dramatically with each contraction, and was not offered any additional pain relief. I think this was just because they wanted to get him out as fast as possible, turns out the cord was around his neck. I managed to avoid the ventouse luckily, begged for a couple more contractions to get him out (I wasn't aware of the problems at that stage and I'm very bossy stubborn when I want to be!) and somehow managed it by myself just with an episiotomy. I only know about what had happened through getting copies of my labour notes through my hospital's PALS service, have you considered doing this?

I am considering having a 'debrief' with the consultant midwife at the hospital where dd was born. I saw my community midwife last week (re current pregnancy) and she suggested I have this before making a decision about where to have this baby, seeing as I am still unhappy about how things turned out.

Definitely worth doing IMO, hopefully it can put your mind at rest about it, or at least make you decide you want to look at other options for where to give birth! How far along are you in current pregnancy?

I gave birth a few weeks ago with the assistance of ventouse and had no pain relief, not even gas. The baby was back to back. It was my third delivery, all three were back to back and the first was ventouse too but with an epidural (v long labour, dipping heart rate). The second was forceps and epidural. I heartily recommend what in my area is called the birth stories service, which is what you have described. It completely changed my view of the previous birth (I was v negative). Best wishes.

I had an attempted ventouse and forceps before EMCS for deceleration of DD's heart rate and I would agree that the insertion of the ventouse was the most painful part of the labour for me. I only had gas and air too as the pethidine that I had earlier on had worn of (but did nothing for the pain during contractions anyway, just made me high).

I doubt they would have offered you pethidine at that point as it would have possibly decelerated your babies heart rate further and also made you woozy which doesn't help with bonding and breastfeeding.

Epidural takes a while to take full affect and they may not have had the time at that point to give one as they wanted to get the baby out as quickly as possible. It can also cause side-effects which can worsen foetal heart rate and also can make difficult for you to hold your baby straight away after birth.

I had a ventouse delivery and was given a local anaesthetic first, I thought that was what normally happened. I did have an episiotomy first though, not sure if that makes any difference

You should have been given a local anaesthetic:

From the RCOG website: You should be given pain relief during an assisted birth. This will either be as a local anaesthetic injection inside the vagina (pudendal block) or a regional anaesthetic injection given into the space around the nerves in your back (an epidural or a spinal)

I had (attempted) foreceps which may be different from ventouse but I wonder if the same principal applies. I hadn't been told in advance that was what they were doing and when they put the forceps in it hurt and I yelled at the doctor. Only then did they give me pain relief - a local anaesthetic- from memory I think one injection in each side.

The debrief sounds like a really good idea.

I think they did give me a local anaesthetic for the episiotomy. The pain was much deeper inside than that - I think when he was fitting the cap onto dd's head. It was agony - felt like my insides were being ripped apart.

I also find cervical examinations uncomfortable in the extreme, and the cervical sweep I had left me in tears from the pain. Do I have an uncommonly sensitive cervix perhaps?