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Childbirth

Pethidine

37 replies

Rachie1986 · 01/11/2018 22:30

I'm 35w pregnant.
With my first child nearly 5yrs ago, j had gas&air and pethidine. Worked a wonder! Now a couple of friends have mentioned that they avoided pethidine because it can make babies restless for a few days? My research online can't find anything to back this up. My hospital doesn't offer many other alternatives, so it would probably have to be an epidural and that would mean labour ward not birth centre. So has anyone heard anything about these issues with pethidine or had that experience?

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Pebblespony · 02/11/2018 20:58

I had pethadine. DD was absolutely fine. I'd definitely get it again.

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33goingon64 · 02/11/2018 21:03

I had it with DS1 and have mixed feelings. There were no problems as such, he was a bit drowsy but fed fine. I needed it for the pain and it was amazing - like being drunk. But then I did feel weirdly out of it after the birth, not completely in control iyswim. For DS2 it was so fast I got in pool and he was out in 2 hours, no time for anything and I didn't even want gas and air.

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Pebblespony · 02/11/2018 21:05

Now that you mention it, I did feel out of it after the birth. Probably a good thing though as I had stitches etc.

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chillipophey · 02/11/2018 21:11

I had 2 lots and I was high as a fucking kite. I asked my husband who he was

Ha apparently I was gurning! So attractive.

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yesmelord · 02/11/2018 22:20

I had 2 bouts of it (no epidural) and I was counting the Christmas trees in the room!!! .... there were no Christmas trees in the room.
I also kept making Donald trump impersonations apparently!

I'm 16 weeks pregnant again and I would have it again. It was enough pain relief for me with nothing else.

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Smurf123 · 02/11/2018 23:35

I had it twice during labour with my son.. The flat lot definitely slowed down the labour.. Second lot was much later on when my epidural wasn't working.i don't know how long after that I have born but my son was described as being very "flat" and he was taken to nicu for a week. I didn't realise pethidine could have played a role

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Rachie1986 · 03/11/2018 09:40

Bertiebotts another localish hospital offers diamorphine and not pethidine, which a couple of people have recommended, but mine doesn't.

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Bobbiepin · 03/11/2018 09:49

I was offered pethidine at 2cm and was worried because I knew it crossed the placenta. They said it was fine in early labour as it would have time to work its way out before delivery, they wouldnt offer it later as it makes babies "lazy" (difficulty breathing & feeding). In the end I made do with gas & air and DD was born 4 hours later (15 hours to 2cm but 4 more and she was born, no one was expecting that).

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BertieBotts · 03/11/2018 15:30

Oh right - I thought pethidine/diamorphine were so close as to be basically the same thing really.

Anyway I found this if you wanted to look at a comparison :) obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1471-0528.12532

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HoustonBess · 12/11/2018 08:55

I had it with DD and at the time I was very glad the pain stopped after more than 24 hours of labour - I gave the anaesthetist a bear hug!

However, it made me feel very stoned and I spewed a fair bit. Then I had an epidural anyway. And a c-section.

DD was very groggy as a newborn and BF was very hard. I also felt out of it, long labour plus surgery was probably a factor but opiates maybe didn't help! I've always put the BF difficulties down to the pethidine a bit, maybe wrongly as it was still at least 12 hours after the pethidine that DD was born.

I would have it again if the pain was unbearable and an epidural wasn't an option, but I would try to avoid where possible.

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Perfectpeony · 12/11/2018 09:01

I had a long labour and had pethidine when I was only 1cm (back to back baby). It was great because I could sleep and didn’t cause any problems for the baby- although it did take another 15 hours for baby to be born so maybe that’s why!

See how you go, for me epidural and pethidine saved me. It made my birth experience calm, relaxed and probably helped me avoid a c section.

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FartnissEverbeans · 12/11/2018 11:40

I had pethidine. DS was sleepy but he was quite a chilled out baby anyway and we didn’t breastfeed at all because I didn’t want to. We kind of gave it a go when he was first born but I didn’t try hard and he wasn’t interested.

I thought pethidine was absolute crap tbh. I was having horrific contractions, the pain wasn’t lessened one iota but I kept falling asleep for about three seconds between pushes, which was really disorientating and made me feel worse. I wouldn’t get it again.