No painrelief offered in labour - normal?

[Rosenherz]

Hi there,
I've had a short debrief my birth experience yesterday and one of my questions was about pain relief. The consultant told me that the midwife does not offer pain relief but the patient has to ask for it. In my case, I was in too much pain and shock to verbalise this. Therefore I was not given the option. I believe that I still could have responded yes or no if I would have been proposed pain relief. I was only given gas and air (which was first empty) and was for many hours in labour before an emergency c-section. I believe an epidural should have been offered, especially it would have helped with putting in the anestesia for the c-section then. Am I completly wrong here? Did your midwives offer anything? Thanks!

Hi OP

Sorry it sounds like you had a horrible experience.

I don't have any personal experience as I am a FTM. I just wanted to say that at my antenatal class the teacher told us that women find it disempowering to be offered pain relief too often. I don't know if that is maybe something to do with it? She didn't say it wouldn't be offered at all though.

I was asked what my thoughts were about pain relief when I first went into the labour suite. I said I wanted to try without but was still offered dihydrocodeine for contractions and g&a for pushing (both of which I refused). I was only offered once, it wasn't mentioned again. Not offering at all seems pretty bad, I'm the sort of person who wouldn't ask unless I was offered.

I wasn't offered anything in either labour. I asked for gas & air, and then later for an epidural.

I was only offered gas and air each time. And the first was a very painful and long back to back delivery. I think midwives are probably damned if they do and damned f they don't.

I wasn't offered so much as a paracetamol and was repeatedly told i couldnt have g&a where I was.

I didn't get offered anything either until my temperature went up in the pool, the midwife wanted me to be able to stay in there, so offered me paracetamol to get it to come down. Other than that I asked for gas and air and asked for an epidural. They tried to talk me out of the epidural, but eventually saw that there was no way I'd not make things worse without one.

I asked and was refused then couldnt ask again because of the pain. This time around i have a known mw so will discuss it at an antenatal check. DH has also been briefed. I think i'll write PAIN RELIEF on a bit of paper and put it in my hospoital bag - jic.

I was offered gas/air and a water pool (was in a mlu so not much else they could offer) as soon as I hit 4cm dilated. Considering I was in the "natural" dept of maternity I would guess they offer the same and more on the labour ward.
I was also told if I felt I needed it I could "go upstairs" if I asked (ie where more drugs were) but this was not an issue as I had a rather fast delivery!

What you experienced sounds not ideal. The problem is - based on anrcdote from my peers- some people go in focused on a natural birth and complain if they have more drugs than expected (as if these were pushed on them and spoilt their ideal birth) that some mw don't offer. But many other people are tired and in pain so don't overtly ask, so end up getting less than they want.
Part of me wonders if it's impossible to balance and depends on how the woman deals with it afterwards.
I know 100% I didn't have a gas n air hippy birth because of NCT protocol or things not being pushed on me: to believe that might make some people feel better if they had their heart set on it though? I was just blessed with a baby who shot out like a greased pig tearing me from fanny to arse on the way out but you can't have it all . Should the mw have cut me? I don't know. But if I was anti intervention and she offered ... how would anyone know if that would upset or relieve me?

Unfortunately the level of interpersonal skills needed are extremely high and not every hcp can perform in that area. Tragically that does result in trauma for some patients.