Baby due May and no idea about pain relief! Any advice please?

[Snoopy10]

Hi - I am due to have my first baby in May and I really don't know where to start regarding pain relief. I have read masses now and I am still none the wiser.

Some swear by epidurals while others list all the problems. Gas and air seems to be a placebo for actual relief and the reports on pethidine vary greatly. Not sure I can face floating in a tub although I know most reports are very positive (I have to be in hospital due to risk factors).

Any advice welcome before I chat to the midwife. I don't know what to ask or plan for. Thanks in advance.

Agree with all who say go with flow.

I had one epidural and one no pain relief. Both brilliant.

(and I am a total wuss who faints at OBEM / sight of blood etc.)

You'll only know on the day. Just don't be scared to ask for what you want loudly and clearly. It's YOUR birth.

Thanks so much - I asked the midwife and she says they don't do episiotomies unless absolutely necessary - usually with forceps delivery. They don't object to giving epidurals right up until the last minute if you want that but try to get you to cope with other pain relief if possible as things move more quickly. Hearing all your advice and experiences has been really reassuring. Thank you.

Oh and Mrs Bug - Thank you for the detail in your message, that is exactly the kind of extreme scenario it is good to hear about, but with such a calm retelling. I am so glad to hear you didn't have any long lasting effects. I know these can occur and some women suffer for a very long time, but to know it isn't a given when intervention is required is extremely reassuring!

Thanks for the advice OG as both epidural and natural seem to have worked for you I am going to be very open minded : )

Glad you are feeling better about things

I had a home birth with DD, so no epidural available (and I chose not to have pethidine available because I was worried about the effect on DD). But I didn't need one for my labour, although some of my friends rave about theirs.

I found a TENS machine was invaluable during 6 days of latent labour and on/off contractions, it allowed me to sleep through the contractions.

Once my midwife got here when i was finally in established labour and confirmed I was 5cm and could use the pool I got in and basically didn't get out again (only one other internal which was done in the pool and monitoring was with a waterproof Doppler, and once I discovered how much it hurt when I got out of the pool to pee I decided to just pee in the pool!). It made the pain less immediate, I loved it. I also used a bit of gas and air towards the end. It was ok, but not amazing.

The most useful pain relief though was psychological. I had a bad bit in the middle somewhere and I thought I couldn't go on, couldn't cope. And that made it hurt more. Once I gave myself a little talking to ("the only way out is through") and started getting right into the contractions rather than trying to get away from them it hurt less. And breathing really deeply helped a lot as well for the pain, it made it more manageable.

I agree, see what situation you are presented with.

My vague plan was that if the baby appeared to be in a sensible sort of position and contractions were going well etc then I would rely on gas and air (well I wanted a water birth but that wasn't possible for various reasons).

If the baby was back to back and/or I was induced then I would request an epidural as they're apparently a lot more painful. However I have plenty of friends who have requested but not got an epidural and/or found it didn't work properly. So I wouldn't pin any hopes on it.

TENS I just found annoying, it depends on whether you find distraction helps or whether you find concentration helps. Turns out I need to really focus on contractions to manage them so TENs (which relies on distraction) wasn't going to work.

I also recommend a little bit of hypobirthing - read a book/listen to the CD and you may take some useful pointers from it. Again though, it depends what situation presents itself as to whether this is going to help or not.