Has anyone had epidural birth?

[Kardelen]

Hi!
so I have a condition called vaginusmus, so on my first baby i could not tolerate being checked if I was dilated or induced.

When I was 10cm my contractions were severe, ( at this point they were able to check if I’m dilated). They gave spinal but it brought its own complications- vacuum/forcep delivery, retained placenta, and episiotomy. Took me 3 weeks to recover.

this time round I wanted a c section to avoid all this. But I know c section is a major surgery, and effects of it will be longer than 3 weeks.

the doctor suggested having epidural when my contractions start, so that they can check if I’m dilated. And to give birth with epidural.

can you feel anything with epidural?

Hi op, I had an epidural and I could feel things but no pain. So eg I remember the midwife touched me at some point to say ‘squeeze these muscles’ and I could feel where she touched, but it was pain free.
I could feel contractions - felt like a beach ball expanding and deflating inside of me - but with none of the pain I could feel before the epidural

Do you mind if I ask how many cm you were before they used epidural?

I was thinking they can’t use it unless they know, but she said they will use it to then check if I’m dilated.

did they also have to insert a catheter? Did it feel like pulling and tugging but no pain? We’re you also able to push?

OP it may be worth looking at the labourpains website if you haven’t already - it’s managed by the OB’s anaesthetist association and has quite a lot of info on epidurals. It may also be worth asking if there’s an obs anaesthetic clinic where you could find out more about the pros/cons specifically for you. HTH.

I’ll have a look at that thank you😊

Mine have been too fast for pain relief. I cope by not keeping still. With my 1st and 3rd I managed to lie down between contractions for them to check (10 and a good 9). With my 2nd I was struggling and the midwife said we wouldn’t bother. She said there were other signs and to just get on with it….he arrived 40 min later. So yours might be different but I think they can tell by a mark/line above your bottom and your emotions when you enter transition (and maybe other things I don’t know about)

Is an epidural but the same thing as a “spinal”, which you had last time?

I had an epidural. It was put into my spine.
I could feel nothing and had trouble pushing, baby was eventually born with a ventouse. It was all fine though, I felt better without the pain.

And yes I had a catheter but it was no big deal.

A "spinal" is probably an epidural.

But yes, have one. Ace if they work. A working epidural means you feel everything but with no pain. Yes you can feel pushing, but without any pain or discomfort.

I also had an epidural which wasn't fully effective. Pain was less than without it, but not pain-free.

Then I had another child without an epidural... it was horrendous pain.

I was just in active Labour with my epidurals. They slightly failed on my left side so I still had some pain felt a bit like wind. I didn’t know that with my first and just topped up every 20 minutes I couldn’t feel anything for pushing and that wasn’t great.
for 2nd and 3rd I knew about the left thing so ignored up and topped up as little as possible and they were great. Could feel the pressure, I felt the change at transition and I could really feel to push. I was so grateful for mine and just topping up as little as possible.
With my third I was in the shower about an hour or two after birth! I think it’s a sensible plan.

Btw I wasn’t checked really for my 2nd or 3rd. I knew something had changed and I wanted to push. At that point midwife checked I was 10cm both times and could start pushing!

I was induced and had an epidural at the outset. No pain whatsoever but I could still feel the contractions, they were exactly like braxton hicks. MW said when to push but I knew anyway from the tightening sensation.

thank you to everyone for your contributions.
i wasn’t able to get epidural last time because they said I was advanced into labour, and also apparently spinal completely numbs the pain and you can’t really push ( which is true in my experience).

Would they do anything if the epidural doesn’t work? Or do you just suck up the pain?

Oh really, how comes you wasn’t checked? So you had the epidural but no one really checked?

Oh really. I don’t understand why they were so adamant with checking me, even when I had the urge to push as was 10cm

@TerraNostra Epidurals and spinals are different. It's uncommon but not completely unheard of to do low dose spinals for labour pain, but this would usually only be when a woman is so unable to sit still for an epidural that it is not safe to continue. A spinal injection is usually quicker to perform than an epidural and the needle is much smaller so the risk in a mobile target is slightly less. If it is done in labour it is used as a sort of short acting rescue technique to allow the woman to get back in control and sit still for another attempt at an epidural if she wished. It would be even more unusual to do a low dose spinal at fully dilated because it makes the anaesthetic decision making much harder and higher risk if the woman suddenly needs to go to theatre for an emergency. Spinal is commonly done in theatre to allow a forceps delivery/section/manual removal/tear repair if a woman hasn't had an epidural in or if an epidural isn't working well (the spinal to facilitate surgery gives really dense numbness that lasts much longer than the rescue technique in labour).

OP, answering your question about what happens with epidurals that don't work well - depending on what the problem is then yes, there are things we can try to get them working better (including putting extra/different drugs into the epidural/adjusting the position slightly/taking it out and starting again) but occasionally they just don't work whatever tricks we try.

Re. examinations, from a purely anaesthetic POV it is quite helpful to know roughly how far into labour a woman is before starting an epidural (particularly for multips who may progress quite quickly). Siting an epidural isn't without risk and they don't work immediately so putting one in at 8/9/10cm may well be exposing a woman to all the risk of the technique, but none of the benefit. There are other obstetric reasons why examination findings will help inform decision making.

Re pushing with epidurals/spinals - you definitely can push well even if you can't feel it. The ideal epidural will mean you can feel contractions but they're not painful. Spinals get rid of all of the sensation, but midwives can still feel when a contraction's happening and tell you when to push. HTH.

I LOVED the epidural for my 2nd birth. It was administered just as my contractions were getting too painful, I was 4cm I belie e. I went from 4 to 10cm very quickly and I could definitely feel a lot of pressure where the baby moved down but no pain. I felt really chilled out and excited to meet my baby. Very different to my first labour which was very fast and incredibly painful. For me it was a very healing experience and I felt completely in control. The midwives told me when to push but it was something that I could do myself, not painful but a lot of pressure, like needing a big poo! I didn't need any interventions and just had a small tear, much easier to heal than the one from my first birth. Have a read up on down breathing, you can practice on the loo and it's really useful for knowing where to focus when pushing.

Why do you need to be checked? My last 2 births I refused any internals. Admittedly they were both home births but I thought you could refuse them?

It sounds very much like your doctor wants to make their job easier - you get an epidural so THEY can check you - without any consideration of what your needs are.

I had one as I wasn't able to cope any longer- so I was probably about 6cm at that point. I'd just declared that I was giving up and could we come back later and try again ("no, not really Darling," was DH's response). I'd been in labour for about 15 hours by that point and just needed to rest.
Anyway, it was all good. It stopped the pain for long enough for me to get my act together and relax a bit. I hadn't realised that you can't walk once you've had one though! They allowed it to wear off enough for me to feel when I needed to push which was helpful.
I walked out of the delivery suite to have a bath about an hour after DS was born. No further pain relief needed- don't think I even took paracetamol (but it was quite a long time ago).

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. Do you think Spinal can use retained placenta? They said mine was a spinal as I was too advanced into labour (10cm).

because they couldn’t check me and my water had broke, I was basically abandoned for 3 days waiting to have a drip to be induced. But luckily my contractions started on its own after day3 or god knows how long more I’d be waiting.
Even when I had all the symptoms of being in labour they still wanted to check.

also, my worst nightmare is this. If you go hospital and say your having contractions they basically check to see if your dilated, and if it’s more than 2cm you stay in hospital, if not they send you home. So that’s the other reason why they check. And if you refuse like the way I had to, you probably will be abandoned.

Do you think there’s more risk of tearing with spinal or epidural? As I had to have episiotomy I’m quite worried l

Turn down the vaginal examinations - I had one when I first got to hospital which I was happy to take - didn’t have anymore and they didn’t ask either, no epidural, vaginal birth no issues!

Interesting, thanks for explaining.