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felt parents should know that this is another thing that might not fit your birth plan - a number of hospitals have withdrawn gas & air as a pain relief option.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

'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'

@Topnun it was a private hospital, too :( I haven't birth 8 months ago so too late for a debrief.

Not at all too late, NHS hospitals there is no time limit, they actually recommend leaving it a few months or so as you get more out of it. Not sure on private but presume they'd offer similar!

@Topnun - I know you said you went privately but it's definitely worth asking as I know the NHS near us Birth Reflections service has no time limit - I know of one woman who had her session 5 years after her birth.

@FeinCuroxiVooz

@FeinCuroxiVooz - not sure how you ended up on the end of my last quote. Sorry!

If men had babies this wouldn’t even be a debate , they would have all the gas and air they wanted and everyone would have epidural as standard. Women get the rough end of the stick every time and no one in government does anything.

So you think if men had babies it would be okay to impact the fertility of midwives and health care professionals because 'men get what they want'

Can't you see how disgusting this attitude is? 'Oh you chose to be a midwife, i want gas and air for my birth so fuck you and your infertility im causing you.

I think it's probably time for me to leave the nhs.

This thread is from eleven years ago discussing the risks and the reasons why gas and air isn't available in so many other countries (slightly taken over by a US Entonox tech salesman for some reason). This has been known for decades, and a lot of midwives have been let down.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/childbirth/1637660-Why-is-entonox-not-available-in-the-US-and-some-European-countries

It's so weird how varied pain relief in birth is by country across Europe. In Finland and Belgium they give you an epidural pretty much as soon as you walk in the door (and an episiotomy in Belgium) whereas in the Netherlands literally next door the midwives have a "yes of course it hurts, it's childbirth, crack on" approach and it's only pretty recently that epidural rates have risen beyond negligible rates.

I suspect what people are suggesting is that the research would have been taken note of decades ago and the necessary adjustments to wards would have been made to ensure safety for staff and a continual provision of pain relief for men. Basically as midwifery is female dominated and as only women give birth of course its been fobbed off until the point they had to do something, and now that's been reached there's no feasible interim measure other than to just expect women to crack on.

It possibly is time to leave though if you are so affected by anon posts on a message board.

That isn't remotely what the PP said. The point they are making is that both groups (labouring women and midwives) are women and therefore second class citizens in healthcare and employment - especially when it comes to pain management and chronic conditions.

I can only hope the hospital I gave birth at has pain relief at the ready then. They didn't when I gave birth. Dragged every thing out until I ended up having nothing. I dread to think what will happen now.
Surely if they've known about this they need to either fit adequate ventilation systems in or have a check that all hospitals are now ready for the changes without BS like, women can now have paracetamol instead.

@crumpledhornedsnorcack I believe @Lambchop1 wasn't saying this would be the right course of action, only that the decision has been made in this way because either way it's only women who suffer, so the decision has been made to take the cheapest course of action which is to ban it. The implication being that if there was male suffering in the balance, then either the option to make women suffer instead would be chosen (by keeping the stuff available with no changes and ignoring the consequences to midwives, which you rightly reject and I am sure the rest of us do to) or the investment to provide extensive filtering and air scrubbing equipment would be made available - which would be the right decision now unless alternative new options are better (obviously there are a great many safety issues with trialling new options though)

This isn't a conflict between midwives and women giving birth. Midwives are entitled to a safe working environment. Women giving birth are entitled to adequate pain relief. These are both (or at least should be!) absolute entitlements in any civilised society.

The answer to ensuring midwives' safety can't be to provide suboptimal, dangerous and inadequate care to women in labour. Neither can the answer to providing satisfactory maternity care be to put midwives' and other health professionals' health at risk. A way needs to be found to achieve both of these goals and it is not acceptable for either of them to be prioritised over the other. And there are ways available, they just cost money and require investment.

I had a fast birth so gas and air was the only pain relief available to me and it worked very well. I hate to think of me doing it again without it. But the safety of midwives and other workers is more important so I will have to get on with it. Can’t believe the attitude of some people.

It's so weird how varied pain relief in birth is by country across Europe. In Finland and Belgium they give you an epidural pretty much as soon as you walk in the door (and an episiotomy in Belgium) whereas in the Netherlands literally next door the midwives have a "yes of course it hurts, it's childbirth, crack on" approach and it's only pretty recently that epidural rates have risen beyond negligible rates.

Yes this is something I’ve always taken note of. Especially when it comes to preparing and planning for birth and people say ‘Don’t bother with plans the doctors know what will be best’ I just think well why is there completely different ways things are done, different guidelines, ideas depending where you are. Just emphasises how important your own thoughts and preferences are to me.

In Finland and Belgium they give you an epidural pretty much as soon as you walk in the door (and an episiotomy in Belgium)

Bloody hell-sounds like my worst nightmare.

Obviously all women/births are different so trying to standardise is never going to work.

Who is it supposed to benfit?

That's just based on the stats (90% get an epidural in Finland and well over half in Belgium) I'm sure you're able to say no, though I suspect a standard Finnish maternity department might not know exactly what to do with you if you did.

@ouchmyteeth this is very interesting. Pain relief in childbirth is often not accessible/available in Japan as well, a lot of midwives and obstetricians don't even know what the safe pain relief medications are.

Access to pain relief during childbirth is actually a human right (international law decided by the United Nations) www.birthrights.org.uk/factsheets/human-rights-in-maternity-care/

It's very strange that in some places, especially developed nations with safe medical practises, do not offer medicated pain relief.

They say women can have paracetamol, tens machine, epidural or opioids

I don't think the paracetamol, tens machine would have been that helpful to me.

Though I had two HB and both times they failed to order the gas and air I was told would be on offer - with second birth the first homebirth I went to trouble to get pethidine just in case and was then told most of the MW wouldn't administer it.

I liked the gas and air with first pg but the MW kept trying to take it away - I think it mostly just relaxed me having had huge rush there and then very unwelcoming hospital environment. I wasn't allowed it for actual birth bit or anything.

Sadly I suspect instead of spending money and improving ventilation the option will just be taken away and I doubt they'll be a corresponding increase in access to epidurals or c-sections.

though I suspect a standard Finnish maternity department might not know exactly what to do with you if you did.

That's scary!

I remember seeing a bit of an old UK programme a bit ago & induced births were being push as convenient as why wouldn't you want to know when you were going to give birth?

(Obvs 9-5!)

This is really interesting, a small focus group investigation of the implications on Dutch midwives of the new guidelines released in 2008 which stated that actually, a woman wanting pain relief counted as sufficient medical grounds for giving pain relief. Previously a woman's subjective belief that she wanted pain relief wasn't a good enough medical reason for an epidural (!)
The midwives seem to have had a very strong belief that pain was an important part of labour and good for mother and baby.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4715289/

I had to beg for an epidural with my first, and I still only got it because of a swollen cervix !! I wonder if they will be more readily available ?

When you think maternity care couldn’t get any worse in this country and then it does! I can’t imagine men tolerating this shit. E.g. l mentioned to my ex husband that my friend was having a sweep. I winced mindful of how that would feel. He was confused and announced “she will get anaesthesia for that”. It must be lovely having a mind set you never need to experience any pain. In contrast it feels like women are expected to often be in pain and it’s just “one of those things”.

This validates when when l see my consultant this week, that l will be booking in for a caesarean

Just a note to anyone worrying about their upcoming births, please contact your hospital to ask about this. I'm due to give birth in July so contacted out local hospital and they have confirmed the assessment has been done and they have been cleared to continue giving gas and air.

Another planet haha, i had my first sweep in a school on a pop up table during the start of covid. They weren't giving any pain relief 🤣🤣🤣

So I work in a hospital and we’ve been resting levels among the staff. Findings are back, some staff were ok, some staff the readings were too high. Management have decided not to tell the staff their readings were too high, decided not to withdraw entonox use. They are going to continue to monitor levels but currently they’re “only a bit high”. So consensus is don’t tell anyone and crack on 🤷‍♀️

surely there’s a cut off for a reason and some hospital directors shouldn’t be risking staff health like this? I’m really uncomfortable with this.