Bans on Gas & Air!

[1stWorldProblems]

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but felt parents should know that this is another thing that might not fit your birth plan - a number of hospitals have withdrawn gas & air as a pain relief option.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.

It’s terrible that this is being framed as some sort of HCPs v women in labour issue.

The actual issue is that the hospital management have failed to ensure they have the right equipment and facilities to enable labouring women to access gas and air while maintaining safe air for everyone else in the womb.

It’s what happens when investment is
insufficient. Staff have been exposed to
unsafe air for who knows how long, so that means the option has been withdrawn for patients. For who knows how long.

But, it is actually the right choice. The real
scandal is actually the unsafe air staff have routinely been exposed to. That’s completely unacceptable.

I hated the gas and air, so much so that I refused it and ended up going through labour and delivery (including an episiotomy and forceps) with no pain relief at all, i believe they may have numbed me locally for the episiotomy. It's certainly not an experience I'd want other women to go through though. The NHS should be ventilating the delivery rooms adequately and removing the risk to midwives, they won't do that though, it's also going to be very difficult to provide more epidurals or more c-sections meaning more women will have to labour without adequate pain relief or have to use options such as pethidine which carries more risks.

Anyone reading this and panicking. I found gas and air to not really have an effect on my pain. It just gave me something else to concentrate on. I thought I was going to break my teeth on the mouthpiece. So don't think to yourself that no gas and air means a traumatic birth. There are other options!

Side note I was also given paracetamol to begin with 🤣

It’s good to know I was too stupid for gas and air to have an effect according to PPs 😂

Gas and air doesn't work for me because after one puff I vomit copiously not because I don't know how to breathe 🙄

This!

I know everyone deals with pain differently but there’s other way to cope though labour without gas and air and the health of the staff is far more important and it’s a good thing this has all come to light as I had no idea that it was causing so much damage to workers until now.

Same! I thought the stuff was awful when the midwife gave it me and I felt sick!

I've had gas and air, pethidine and nothing and every labour/birth was equally painful. Anyone who says they 'can't cope' without, well, if you're about to give birth you don't have a lot of choice?

So presumably they will be banning it's use entirely from all hospitals for any purposes not just for labouring women, and also banning it from ambulances and other places where it is used?

I agree with this, I used gas and air on DS2 after a two day induced labour while waiting endlessly for an epidural. It didn't take the pain away but did distract from the pain enough for me to not go on a muderous rage hunting down the anaesthetist! 😂 I was also given paracetamol prior to this after two days of continuous labour and nothing else offered to help with that or the endless painful internal examinations.

By not cope I mean find the experience a lot more traumatic and distressing. Inadequate pain relief for my first birth was definitely a big factor in subsequent birth trauma and PND.

Well, that is a question worth exploring.

it may be that the issue is particularly acute on labour wards because it’s used so much more frequently than elsewhere of course.

or it may be related to the crappy facilities in labour wards and birthing suites. Or some mix of many things.

It may not (only!) be that labouring women aren’t viewed as important. But it would be interesting to know what the air quality differences are and what contributes to this.

Can anyone please respond if they know the answer?

Why was I not offered gas and air?

I had to have a vacuum delivery, an obstetrician can to come in and do it, sounds like it had to happen pretty fast.
I got second degree tears and no pain relief, it was horrific. Obstetrician knew my birth plan was minimum pain.

I felt too shy to ask but I still wonder - why didn't they offer me gas for pain? He knew I would get torn with no pain relief.

Its the standard routine of pitching two groups of women against each other when the real scandal is the shocking state of maternity care and services in a G7 country.

Considering how long there have been ppm standards for the gas in a work place its surprising that there isn't more in depth research and data for evidence based decisions. Obviously the cheap option is to remove pain relief options instead of upgrade the equipment or ventilation.

Oh but it only affects women making a fuss about an entirely natural process doesn't it? Not a priority in the NHS budgets, like so many women's health concerns.

I'd recommend asking the hospital for a debrief, they are the only ones who can really answer and you might find it helps you come to terms with it. It sounds like you were treated appallingly which is of course absolutely unacceptable.

To a previous poster, it will be suspended in all areas where ventilation isn't sufficient or its use its prolonged. I'm not sure what ambulances to in terms of airing themselves out or if they have mandated filtration already.

Gas and air was all I had and only during the last 20 minutes before meeting my baby! Then it was great for the stitches also. This worries me for my second birth!

Yeah, I'm lucky and had relatively 'easy' labours. I think women's experiences of labour and childbirth vary so wildly, I've all but forgotten how painful it was yet others end up literally traumatised. I don't know what the solution is though, if pain relief is banned.

They attempted to remove the gas and air from me when it got to pushing so I could concentrate more on that, apparently you can push more effectively without it. I refused to give it up though.

There are more pain relief options than just gas and air! I fully support the withdrawal so that midwives and doctors have safer working conditions.

I gave birth twice in Germany and they don't have gas and air. There'll be plenty of alternatives.

Tens machines didn't work at all for me, I was still in agony!

Hopefully they will work things so other forms of pain relief are more accessible than they currently are

I bloody loved gas and air, it was amazing at dealing with the pain and chilling me out

It worked for me too.

I dozed off for about half an hour!

Well I suppose if I hadn't been offered it I would never have known.

What I liked about it was me using it as & when I wanted to.

What else is used in the same way?

Epidural was never an option for me.