Can someone come and talk to me about pain relief!

[Dollybird86]

Hi all
I'm trying to write my birth plan and thinking about pain relief Im open to all options but would like to start with stepping stones rather than go 0 to 60!
•Did a tens machine did it work for you?
•Birthing pool pro and cons?
•Diamorphine? How did you find it? Did it just take the edge off or were you able to try and relax and rest until it wore off?

Thanks in advance for all ur replys!
(I hope I get some)

Definitely recommend tens machine- use it early and ramp it up a level when you can't feel it anymore. I had mine on for early stages right through to 4cm (on drip). I took it off because one pad was slightly out of place and giving me annoying back spasms.

Gas and air was great for me after initial 'this is gross'. It helped with the pain and gave me something to focus on.

At 4cm I went for pethidine, thinking I'd have 6 plus hours to go, despite saying I didn't want opiates (lol). Didn't take the pain away but it relaxed me and I cared less about the pain. Was fully dilated 75 minutes later.

Wanted water birth but couldn't as was on drip and monitoring.

Birth Skills by JuJu Sundin is a very interesting read- looks at non-medicalised ways of coping with labour pain. Surprisingly non-woo and techniques can be used alongside other pain relief if needed.

First labour was back to back and really slow and long and I was utterly knackered. Nothing went to plan so I had:

Pethidine - Was bloody brilliant. I was utterly off my face! But shortly after it wore off, my contractions did too. I don't know if it was related. I think it's good for it you're knackered and you need a bit of respite. I dosed off between contractions.

Epidural - I was resigned and knackered by this point. I couldn't have done it without it, but likewise, I hated it. I hated not having any feeling from the waist down and I hated being pinned to a bed.

Second labour all I had was a TENS machine. Bloody loved it. It was really, really annoying but provided a distraction from the pain of the contractions.

I didn't get given the gas and air until after DS2 was out and they had to put a stitch in. I had one puff and I hated it. It felt like that feeling I used to get after drinking too much then lying down and the room starting to spin.

Wanted a pool but our water pressure is crap and it didn't get filled up in time.

Dimorphine - I'd been in latent labour for 2.5 days and hadn't slept. They gave me this and I fell asleep for four hours, it was amazing :)

Gas and air - helped for a while, may be just because it gave me something to focus on.

Epidural - it didn't't work fully - no pain but I could feel a lot of pressure with maybe one in four contractions. Nevertheless, it was really good and allowed me to recoup some strength for pushing - I was in active labour for about 15 hours so was pretty knackered!

I went in fairly open to pain relief, no set ideas but just decided at each point what I needed then to help me through - had dimorphine first so I could get some sleep, then gas and air for about 8 hours, then had an epidural as I was getting so tired with contractions, and they put me on a syntocin drip due to not dilating further for about 7 hours, and I just decided I wasn't doing that without the epidural.