Pethidine and staying upright

[Thesebootsweremadeforwalking]

A question just popped into my head and I can't find an answer, so am here to ask a possibly silly question....

I had pethidine for DS, after a lost night's sleep. I ended up staying on a bed for most of the time due to CTG and overwhelming tiredness.

I've always kind of assumed that I would have still been able to move around after having pethidine in the absence of the CTG and lost night.

Is that possible? Has anyone managed it?

DC2 due, so would be nice to get this straight in my head before labour starts....

I think a lot of hospitals don't use pethadine any more. I had it with DS but when I was having DD they had switched to diamorphine. Check with your hospital to see if they still use it and if so they may have some advice for you re the tiredness etc.

Good luck with your labour.

i didn't either time unfortunately. i did for a short while with both and then all of a sudden i felt dizzy and woozy and had to lie down, then when i tried to get up again i just couldn't. like you i wanted to stay on my feet but the pethidine actually stopped my labour with Ds2 and i had to be induced so was on the monitor.

I Had pethidine and couldn't keep my eyes open. On the plus side I went from 4cm to 9cm dilated in an hour and half!

I wanted to get off the bed but they kept pushing me back on and insisting I stay there in case I fell over with the wooziness (which I never got, nor any pain relief for that matter but that's another story).

Hmm. Thanks all. Right, I'd better have a rethink of this birth plan.... Seeing MW today so will find out what they use now and whether they encourage mobility after it or not.

Fingers crossed the birthing pool is free when the time comes!

I had pethidine in the last 20 minutes of labour. I wanted to stay on the bed (back to back baby, standing up made me feel like my pelvis was splitting in half), lying down was such a relief after trying standing, all fours and bobbing around in the pool.

Baby was born, photos taken. Within about 1 hour, I walked to the shower unaided, had a shower, got back into bed and fell asleep for another hour! I was VERY shaky afterwards, and couldn't carry him from the MLU to the car, nor could I carry him from the car to the house, for fear of dropping him. I also threw up twice (once while holding the baby and everyone had left the room!!), and in the car on the way home.

Both baby and me were very sleepy for the whole next 24 hours. I also blame pethidine for my severe lack of memory of the birth and following 2 days, for the baby being so sleepy he wouldn't BF (didn't ever even give 'hungry' signals!).

I will try and avoid it next time.

Forgot to add - I think I could have stood up, but wanted to lie down, and certainly afterwards was very woozy for a long time.

Me too visualise. I actually dont know whether i had any stitches or not with ds2. I just dont remember. Also. And this isnt to worry anyone, but ds2 stopped breathing when i was born due to the pethidine in his system. He had to be resussed and given some injection to reverse the pethidine whuch meant he couldnt leave the hosp for 24 hours incase of any adverse effects. I would also avoid pethidine if at all possible. Also, i dont think you can go in the birth pool once youve had pethidine.

And yes to the throwing up during labour.

Gas and air is reported to be more effective at actual pain relief than pethidine but the advantage of pethidine (if it works for the individual well) is that it helps relax and allows women to rest...so mobilisation not really a factor. It is best in long slow labours where the woman needs to recoup for a while before mobilising again (in an ideal world).

Yep i fell asleep between my contractions with both labours. Dozed off for a minute or two at a time between pushing

Neither Gas and air, nor pethidine had any affect on me, until the stitching.

Thanks again all. I had a very helpful chat with my MW this afternoon and I'm going to revise my birth plan this evening as a result.

Thankfully she doesn't think this one is currently spine to spine like DS was. Fingers crossed s/he stays that way, as I suspect I could have got further without pethidine if I hadn't been at it for 20+ hours by the time I got into established labour.