diamorphine?

[ardenbird]

Diamorphine is a pain relief option in our MW-led unit. Since I can't have pethidine due to severe and violent reactions (had it for an outpatient procedure: ended up hospitalised due to dehydration from vomitting, then incapacitated for 3 more days) , I'm wondering if this is an option for me.

Does anyone have any experience with diamorphine? Especially anyone who has had pethidine, and even more especially if pethidine made you feel ill to any extent, how does it compare?

I'm ok with pethidine but not morphine if that helps?

Just skip it if you're worried. I have had a bad reaction before so just had codeine and paracetemol.

I was given this with dd and found it made me so drowsy. I was all but knocked out for a few hours and woke only for each contraction. I was given the diamorphine at 9.15am and was still feeling dozy at 7pm ( although the pain relieving side of the drug had worn off by then!).

Good luck to you OP and hope it all goes well for you

I had diamorphine but no experience of pethidine. For me, it made me feel slightly woozy for a few hours and didn't do much in the way of pain relief for my contractions. Felt it wore off very quickly. When baby was born she was very drowsy and a sleepy feeder. It made breastfeeding in the first few days a nightmare - still have the sore and cracked nipples to show for it 10 days on!

I did have other complications with my birth so don't know if there were other factors involved. However, given the limited pain relief (for me - baby was back to back) and sleepy baby I ended up with would not go for it again.

I had diamorphine and thought it was magic! Gas and Air wasn't really cutting it for me, and I was wary of diamorphine as I had heard at our NCT classes that it an make you feel sick. But as G&A wasn't working, DH persuaded me to try diamorphine.

It did make me very drowsy and doesn't stop all the pain of contractions but to me it felt like I was having a half hour kip in between each one. And because you're a bit out of it, you cope better with the pain of the contraction. Tbh, I can't remember how long it lasted but they knew i wanted an epidural (which I went onto have) so I don't think I had a big dose of diamorphine,just enough to tide me over until I was more dilated and ready for the epidural. The epidural was magic too.

Neither seemed to affect my DD either, she was born and feeding pretty much straight away.

Good luck with the birth!

Just wanted to add that I didn't feel drowsy once re epidural was in either, and was able to keep going for a good couple of hours afterwards to give birth.