Sickness with gas and air

[flipflopsonfifthavenue]

My labour with DS was very fast and furious and although I tried gas and air twice I was immediately sick each time. Basically I ended up having no pain relief as birth was so fast.

Am 39weeks now and going for a sweep tomorrow. Who knows if it'll start anything but I wonder if anyone has any experience of gas and air being effective second time round if it made you sick first time?

I don't want opiates and would like to avoid epidural so I can stay mobile, so really running out of options :(

[bruffin]

Gas and Air makes me violently sick , i was sick after having gas at the dentist as well.
2nd time with dd was sick again after one whiff, and ended up with nothing and I was fine.
First time round i ended up with an epidural which slowed everything down and ended up in theatre after failed ventuese, for forceps that thankfully worked or it was emergency cs.

[PotteringAlong]

Me! Threw up with it first time round, horribly and violently. Worked like a charm with DS2

[ohthegoats]

I was really sick with gas and air - I found also that it prevented me being able to do the breathing I'd got myself into with the contractions. After I was sick the second time I didn't use it again - couldn't bear the thought, even though I was in the pool and general opinion from everyone in the room was that being in the pool and G&A is a great combo of pain relief.

Personally I found the mouthpiece hard work - they got me a face mask thing to use with it too, but it just didn't flow right for my breathing. Shame - when I tried it without a contraction going on, it worked pretty well at spacing me out and might have been good if I'd been able to use it properly.

[Pippin8]

There is delayed gastric emptying in labour. So the sickness could have been because of the speed of the labour. Your body getting rid of what it didn't need in order to concentrate on the job in hand. For g&a to be effective you need to get into a rhythm with your breathing & it takes more than 2 attempts. So this time around may be different.

[Hakluyt]

Sorry- didn't mean to alarm anyone! It didn't affect my actual breathing- it affected my ability to use my breathing to get through contractions. Which was my main strategy- and worked well once I ditched the gas and air.

[Idontseeanysontarans]

Similar to Hak I'n afraid, G&A second and third time (hopped up on pethadine first time round!) and made me feel sick combined with light headedness. The third time it was so useless that I almost brained DH with the breathing tube. I HB'd though so my options were limited.
No difficulty breathing though, that must have been awful Hak!

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Gas and air was fine the second time. HB, no awful hospital soup to throw up.

Not sure it does a lot, but it's a good distraction. Distraction was needed, DD2 forgot about gaps between contractions. I spent three hours failing to finish a cup of tea.

[lighteningmcmama]

Gas and air worked for me with dc1, not with dc2 and worked again with dc3-so you may have a different experience this time around

[LizzieMint]

If you gave birth the first time with just g&a, I'd say the likelihood second time would be that you won't need anything. Especially it it's fast. This was my experience, I used g&a first time (2 hour labour on syntocinon drip), second and third time, also quick and no pain relief needed.

[Hakluyt]

I hated gas and air both times- it made me feel sick and completely screwed up my breathing. Not sure if that helps-sorry:(