remifentanil for labour?

[utopian99]

Think the spelling is correct but might be a wrong vowel in there..

I our NCT class we did gas/air, water births, epidural, and pethidine/diamorphine, and the last two seemed to have some relatively major reasons to avoid if possible, (although if it's really ghastly I'll probably take anything!) Our plumber's wife gave birth 6 weeks ago and had a drug called remi which is the stuff above. It's still an opiate but has a really short half life, so doesn't hang around in your system or affect the baby like peth/diamorphine and sounds great.
Does anyone else have any experience/thoughts to share? I'm due Dec 15th with my first..

I had G&A, diamorphine & remi with DD - it was great compared to just G&A and diamorphine with DS.
Only thing about remi, as it is self administered, you can only use it every 2 mins - crap when baby's crowning and contractions are quicker than that. So crap that I threw the button at DH and told him to get rid of it
I didn't have any side effects from any of these tho, although I did throw up continually throughout labour with DD - but that started before I even left the house to go to hospital.
Congratulations & good luck with baby

I was offered this after a failed epidural, diamorphine and gas and air, but the midwife said it was rubbish when I asked if it was any good, the consultant said it can make you sick too so I decided not to bother.

I have also witnessed extreme itching (the woman giving birth literally tearing at her skin) as a side effect of this. In conjunction with it not coinciding with her contractions it was useless.

thanks - I've also now found out they don't offer it everywhere, including our planned hospital, so looks like that idea's out!

:( oh no. I was thinking it would be a good alternative to pethidine which had no effect on me at all last time. And my hospital does it too.

Not all units use remi and where they do, its often only offered to those women who cannot have an epidural.

It's used more widely in the Netherlands where some women report a real "come down" effect afterwards.

It's expensive - that is to say, the kit used to administer it (PCA) is expensive so it's unlikely to become mainstream on the NHS