Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

Original poster

Bans on Gas & Air!

154 replies

1stWorldProblems · 26/02/2023 23:54

Saw this in the Sunday Times today but don't have a share token so here's the same story from the BBC Ban on Gas & Air. I'm not advocating dangerous working conditions for medical staff but felt parents should know that this is another thing that might not fit your birth plan - a number of hospitals have withdrawn gas & air as a pain relief option. As someone who depended it on for both my births, I think other parents should be aware of this change.

OP posts:
Cherryblossoms85 · 26/02/2023 23:58

Tens machines actually work better imho.

ouchmyteeth · 27/02/2023 00:02

i would not have coped without gas and air, got me through the entire labour without any other pain relief.

I can’t imagine not having the option. Especially since you can’t always get an epidural if staff are overstretched.

Quite a sad thought that women could be denied basic pain relief for childbirth. Men would never be expected to deal with this.

SkivingSnackboxes · 27/02/2023 00:05

ouchmyteeth · 27/02/2023 00:02

i would not have coped without gas and air, got me through the entire labour without any other pain relief.

I can’t imagine not having the option. Especially since you can’t always get an epidural if staff are overstretched.

Quite a sad thought that women could be denied basic pain relief for childbirth. Men would never be expected to deal with this.

So you're okay with midwives becoming infertile and having miscarriages because 'men wouldn't stand for this' fucks sake Hmm

ReedRite · 27/02/2023 00:11

No doubt those hospitals that have withdrawn it will be making sure they have adequate anaesthetist staffing levels at all times, to ensure all women can receive adequate pain relief ina timely manner….?

MrsTerryPratchett · 27/02/2023 00:13

So you're okay with midwives becoming infertile and having miscarriages because 'men wouldn't stand for this' fucks sake

No surely she's advocating proper ventilation, the machines fitted that scrub the air, monitors etc. Maternity care should improve not get worse.

hbbyno2 · 27/02/2023 00:14

I'm admitted on a ward in one of the hospitals atm with a ban on it, the conversations I have heard are heartbreaking. Thankfully for me I am having a csection

Ladybird69 · 27/02/2023 00:17

I haven’t read the article, what reasoning are they using for the ban? I had 4 children using gas and air are they expecting to just give every woman in labour an epidural?!!!

hbbyno2 · 27/02/2023 00:20

Ladybird69 · 27/02/2023 00:17

I haven’t read the article, what reasoning are they using for the ban? I had 4 children using gas and air are they expecting to just give every woman in labour an epidural?!!!

Risk to health care workers health. Mine hasn't said what risks but that there isn't adequate ventilation to reduce the risk. They say women can have paracetamol, tens machine, epidural or opioids

PuttingOnTheKitsch · 27/02/2023 00:24

hbbyno2 · 27/02/2023 00:20

Risk to health care workers health. Mine hasn't said what risks but that there isn't adequate ventilation to reduce the risk. They say women can have paracetamol, tens machine, epidural or opioids

Show quote history

Paracetamol???!!!

Which will do precisely what exactly? They should be embarrassed to say such nonsense with a straight face.

I don't know what has to happen for maternity care to start putting the needs of women first. It would seem that countless scandals can occur and women in labour are still treated like crap.

UWhatNow · 27/02/2023 00:25

Gas and air is a pretty piss poor pain relief for labouring women. You may as well give them a stick to put between their teeth. It’s just a cheap option for the NHS. A proper health service would medicalise it and make early epidurals standard like they do in the US. Here it’s whale music, bean bags and pep talks about ‘natural’ birth being heroic and wholesome.

You can guarantee if men gave birth, obstetric medicine would have World Cup levels of investment and that would not include gas and air and being told to ‘breath deeply’. It would be epidurals every time.

FoxInSocksSatOnBlocks · 27/02/2023 00:27

Gas and air is a load of bollocks anyway 😂 Did absolutely fuck all for me.

ouchmyteeth · 27/02/2023 00:28

MrsTerryPratchett · 27/02/2023 00:13

So you're okay with midwives becoming infertile and having miscarriages because 'men wouldn't stand for this' fucks sake

No surely she's advocating proper ventilation, the machines fitted that scrub the air, monitors etc. Maternity care should improve not get worse.

Yes, not just being quick to remove pain relief from labouring women (and in some units but not others??) like it’s not a big deal because it really is.

LemonSwan · 27/02/2023 00:34

Epidurals aren’t risk free. Women should have the option. They absolutely need to sort this out.

Namechanger355 · 27/02/2023 00:38

agreed with pp above - epidurals have inherent risks and aren’t for everyone

gas and air really helped me

this is unacceptable and needs to be sorted

Ladybird69 · 27/02/2023 00:41

@hbbyno2 thanks for telling me. Sounds dodgy to me! We’re running out of medicines, operations are being cancelled left right and centre and now we’re having pain relief removed from use! The end of the nhs ?

Codlingmoths · 27/02/2023 00:42

PuttingOnTheKitsch · 27/02/2023 00:24

Paracetamol???!!!

Which will do precisely what exactly? They should be embarrassed to say such nonsense with a straight face.

I don't know what has to happen for maternity care to start putting the needs of women first. It would seem that countless scandals can occur and women in labour are still treated like crap.

Show quote history

I’m sure you mean something other than my midwife can have a miscarriage if it means I get my pain relief. It’s not safe for them. Yes they should be looking into how to make it safe (cost effectively, not by rebuilding the whole hospital), and it’s a travesty it’s taken so long for them to act, but they must keep their staff safe. They haven’t been doing this.

Forever42 · 27/02/2023 00:43

Fair enough to ban it if it causes concerns. However, entonox was always the most readily available pain relief. My concern would be that other pain relief won't be so readily available, especially as the labouring woman can generally regulate their own use rather than relying on a healthcare professional to administer.

Forever42 · 27/02/2023 00:44

Also, in places around the world where they don't use gas and air (eg US and France, I think?) epidurals are readily available. In my experience, there is limited availability of epidural for labouring women on the NHS.

LorW · 27/02/2023 01:15

When I had my LG gas and air wasn’t available and they couldn’t get me an anaesthetist to give me an epidural, so I asked for a tens machine and they couldn’t find one, so they just gave me oramorph and then pethidine - quite a few injections (which made my LG sleepy when she was first born) it didn’t really work and honestly the pain was horrific, especially when they tried forceps I actually thought I was going to pass out - ended up in theatre in the end with a spinal (they managed to find someone to do that🙄)

I understand there’s risks but it’s just sad 😔 I’d hope they’d make sure an anaesthetist is available.

OriginalUsername2 · 27/02/2023 01:20

FoxInSocksSatOnBlocks · 27/02/2023 00:27

Gas and air is a load of bollocks anyway 😂 Did absolutely fuck all for me.

I got high as a kite! Wouldn’t give birth without it. 10/10

It’s a scary prospect. I never got a much wanted epidural in time.

TheLadyofShalott1 · 27/02/2023 01:28

Well it is a long time since I had my babies, and broke my leg, but to those of you who say that Entonox is useless, I have to suggest to you that you weren't breathing it in properly. I know that many things can be down to personal opinion, but with chemical and biological reactions, I thought that the results were well acknowledged and documented.

Of course, even if that is so, things like someone's size, their lung capacity, the health of their lungs and the state and quality of the different elements of one's blood, along with the efficiency of their hearts, could all have some affect on the absorption in the body of the gas (Nitrous Oxide) and the air (Oxygen) (50% of each make the gas and air mixture, Entonox). However, even taking into account all of those differentials in each person's body, unless you were not breathing the gas and air mixture all the way into your lungs, it had to have some affect on you.

I must have been breathing it in properly, because I bloody loved the stuff - I had my first baby because I wanted a baby, but I had the others, and broke my leg, because I wanted the Entonox! But in all seriousness, has the Entonox really been causing miscarriages and fertility problems in midwives for at least the last 50 odd years, and if it has, why has it taken so long for "them" to realise what was causing the problem?

I do think that if Entonox really is the problem, has something like it's delivery to the mums to-be had any drastic changes for "them" to only be aware of the dangers more recently? If it is just a matter of needing better ventilation in the labour wards and delivery rooms, surely that can be implemented very quickly, as there are already many other instances where fresh and clean air is of paramount importance, so the mechanisms for providing that are very well established.

Namechanger355 · 27/02/2023 01:32

As pp above said - breathing it in properly is what helped me to suddenly benefit from it

I was labouring for 18 hours without breathing it in properly and it did very little - but another midwife told me how to do it properly and it was suddenly brilliant

ziggiestardust · 27/02/2023 01:41

If it puts pregnant midwives in danger of miscarriage then it must of course be withdrawn; but I do wonder why we have such limited pain relief options in general. It feels like it’s either paracetamol/a bath/gas and air or they bring out the big guns like pethidine and epidurals and nothing in between. If men gave birth; the options would be endless.

I also think (and this might be controversial) that a pregnant midwife (or any frontline nurse actually) is properly safe at work due to the physicality, the general public being arseholes, the stress, the shift work and also exposure to things like this that we still don’t know about (there will surely be more we haven’t discovered), and they should be offered the option of a second line position. I was pregnant whilst in a front line engineering job and was immediately placed into an office role for health and safety. I think we should be protecting pregnant midwives and nurses better than we do, and if they can’t be offered a second line position, they should be given maternity leave on full pay for the duration.

endofthelinefinally · 27/02/2023 01:41

TheLadyofShalott1 · 27/02/2023 01:28

Well it is a long time since I had my babies, and broke my leg, but to those of you who say that Entonox is useless, I have to suggest to you that you weren't breathing it in properly. I know that many things can be down to personal opinion, but with chemical and biological reactions, I thought that the results were well acknowledged and documented.

Of course, even if that is so, things like someone's size, their lung capacity, the health of their lungs and the state and quality of the different elements of one's blood, along with the efficiency of their hearts, could all have some affect on the absorption in the body of the gas (Nitrous Oxide) and the air (Oxygen) (50% of each make the gas and air mixture, Entonox). However, even taking into account all of those differentials in each person's body, unless you were not breathing the gas and air mixture all the way into your lungs, it had to have some affect on you.

I must have been breathing it in properly, because I bloody loved the stuff - I had my first baby because I wanted a baby, but I had the others, and broke my leg, because I wanted the Entonox! But in all seriousness, has the Entonox really been causing miscarriages and fertility problems in midwives for at least the last 50 odd years, and if it has, why has it taken so long for "them" to realise what was causing the problem?

I do think that if Entonox really is the problem, has something like it's delivery to the mums to-be had any drastic changes for "them" to only be aware of the dangers more recently? If it is just a matter of needing better ventilation in the labour wards and delivery rooms, surely that can be implemented very quickly, as there are already many other instances where fresh and clean air is of paramount importance, so the mechanisms for providing that are very well established.

I am one of those midwives who miscarried my baby at 13 weeks. 2 of my colleagues miscarried at 12 and 14 weeks. One had had fertility problems for years. She was a senior midwife on labour ward.
This damage caused by entonox has been known since the 1980s and is well documented. But the nhs does not care one bit about the health and safety of the staff. At last there seems to be a tiny bit of interest in looking at the issues. My colleague never managed to have a successful pregnancy. It breaks my heart that this was known about back then and nobody cared.