On the 'ring of fire' theme, are there any doctors/midwives/ medical people out there who can answer my question?

[janey68]

I've had two children, natural births, had a few whiffs of g and a around transition during labour, but it was then whisked off me for the pushing stage.

Now, let me be clear that on balance I am very very pleased that I had low tech births in a midwife unit with no interventions and over medicalisation.

BUT I have to be honest, I found the second stage of labour, actually pushing the baby out, excruciating. I think what shocked me was that I felt I coped relatively well with first stage; yes it was long and painful, especially the first dc, but I feel I "rode" through the contractions pretty well using relaxation and breathing. However, second stage was sooo painful I wanted to die (I tore first time too.) For this reason alone, when I fell pg with dc2 I almost considered going to hospital for the delivery so I had more access to pain relief. What swung it in the end and made me decide to stick with the MLU again was that from what I could gather, the only option would be going the whole epidural route so id be numbed up. I really didn't want this, because it seemed a bit like a sledgehammer to crack a nut: I had already coped with a 16 hour first stage with dc1 and I didn't want the increased risk of interventions, being strapped to a monitor etc with dc2, just to avoid the pain of pushing the baby out

Sorry, this is long winded but what I'm leading up to, is why aren't there more methods of pain relief or support for women like me (I'm sure I'm not the only one) who don't want to be numbed up in hospital with the heavy duty epidural route, but also don't want to feel 100% the pain of the baby actually coming out? I know local anaesthetics are used for forceps , which presumably doesn't completely block the pain like an epidural but must take the worst edge of it off. Why can't an injection be given by the midwife even if forceps aren't used? Or some sort of numbing cream?

My child bearing days are past, and in one sense I am glad like I said that my births were natural because I did find that to cope with that level of intensity and pain was empowering, so I don't regret it, and the MLU was a much calmer and positive place to give birth than a hospital. But I do ponder this sometimes: whether it needed to be so excruciating. Is it really a case of having the complete medicalised route of epidural, or nothing (I say nothing because most mums I know who had just g and a like me had it taken off for the pushing stage, and unlike other pain relief, the effect is lost immediately, as soon as you breathe in that final gasp of it).
I'd be so interested to hear what any medical people have to say on this

TIA

I started this thread out of a niggling sense of 'could my second stages of labour have been a little better'... But yes, it IS depressing to think that a simple procedure which can be done at home isn't routinely being offered. And shocking too because the one thing we keep hearing banged on about is COST and the soaring csection rate, and other expensive interventions like epidural, forceps etc ... Yet this is presumably a very cheap method which may well be the deal breaker in a woman deciding she doesn't need to go the whole epidural route just to get through the short (but agonising) last bit.

Really interested to hear more from any doctors on this thread about why this is not used routinely.

I had an epidural with my first and still felt the ring of fire - in fact i think it was worse than with my second when i just had gas and air - because i had the pain without the urge to push.

I never felt the "ring of fire". I did have a local anaesthetic injected (presumably lidocaine?) for an episiotomy. Also didn't get gas & air taken away. DS came out facing up (which I thought was meant to be excruciating but in my case wasn't). I don't remember it being that painful, mainly just it being a huge relief that I could stop pushing.

At the time I assumed it was the gas & air that helped.