Emergency C Section After Epidural | ++ Only Vote If You Had An Emergency C Section

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My partner has had 2 births by emergency C-section. 1st one was 6 years ago the 2nd one was less than 24 hours ago.

Both times the epidural was done and within 2 hours of the procedure, an emergency c-section was called.

I would suggest that once you’re home and settled, your partner arranges a birth reflections appointment with one of the midwives at the hospital. This should help you both get an understand of why she needed an emergency c-section. It’s unlikely to be down to the epidural in my experience, unless she wasn’t able to push effectively etc. due to the epidural and baby was getting distressed.

Epidurals do not increase the risk of needing a c-section. They may be associated with a slightly higher chance of needing assisted (forceps/ventouse) delivery (but it’s an association only, not a causative relationship). The labourpains website links to a useful cochrane review of these relationships.
(A very rare exception to this would be where an epidural inadvertently caused a total spinal - that would require an immediate section and is barn-door obvious if it’s happening).

My emergency CS was cos my waters had gone 24 hours before my contractions and my contractions kept dropping my son's heart rate.

Why do you think this info isn't out there for people to read?

https://sarahbuckley.com/epidurals-risks-and-concerns-for-mother-and-baby/

Fetal heart decelerations are a known side effect of an epidural, this is the reason for co stant fetal monitoring after administration of an epidural. These usually resolve within 30 minutes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4718011/#:~:text=Matched%20controls%20were%20found%20for,a%20cesarean%20(20%25%20vs. Risk of cesarean higher with epidural.

There are confounding factors, restricted movement of the mother, supine position required.

There are a lot of inaccurate statements on that page.

@Greybeardy .. I was looking for text that was accessible.. I didn't assess the validity of all of the statements.

There are many other sources that state that fetal deceleration is a side effect of an epidural. Are you disputing this or simply casting doubt on my statement.

Fetal deceleration is a common side effect as drops maternal blood pressure. Happened to me. They bought it back up with fluids. If that hadn't worked I'd have had a cat 1 section, but most do come back up. Like I said in my post, thats the one way can lead to section but mostly its other factors such as induction or back to back etc that lead to section not the epidural.

For me, dc1 didn't get distressed with the epidural and neither did it cause any issues to me. I got fully dilated. I pushed but he never descended. My emcs was because no amount of pushing or pulling with forceps could make dc1 budge from mid pelvis.

He had a massive head (over 35 cm) which is linked to increased chance of intervention.

You can't draw conclusions from random anecdotes, but I think there already was robust research that epidurals are correlated to c-sections. The difficulty in determining if it causes more c-sections is that people often have an epidural because things aren't going well, and the reasons it isn't going well can also cause them to need a C-section. I've had an unplanned epidural for two births, both due to unexpected complications. I ended up with an emergency C-section the first time but just avoided an emergency C-section the 2nd time.

I have an epidural then an emergency section shortly afterwards but it was already looking likely that the birth would go that way, so they encouraged me to have it as it's quicker to top up the epidural, then have to put a spinal in during an emergency.

You've just had a traumatic experience, so it's natural to try to find something to blame, but I was definitely told in advance that an epidural would increase the risk of section. It was on the waver I had to sign before they gave it and also mentioned during antenatal class.

waiver to sign? My partner wasn't given anything to sign she was advised to have an epidural at 6cm and whilst she was in so much pain she was asked a few times do you want an epidural or not they wouldn't do anything until she eventually said yes give me anything for the pain.

My Emergency CS had nothing to do with my epidural - weird uterine deformity.

Didn't want an epidural, but baby turned out to be sideways breech after induction and 13 hrs it was clear couldn't be born naturally, had epidural for emergency C.

Two epidurals and no c-sections. Epidural was only because I was on the drip and they increased the dosage so quickly the contractions hit like a freight train.

I had an epidural before I was labour. Waters had gone and they wanted to induce. So epidural then then hormone. drip born naturally with interventions just to give a positive side to them.

did you both go home the day after giving birth or did baby have to stay in for a few days?

I had a failed forceps delivery then cat 1 emergency section. Baby born early evening. They were still happy to let us both out the next day!

I had an epidural 36 hours after induction started with pessary and hormone drip as I was exhausted and in pain. Just prior to epidural waters were manually broken by midwife (took three attempts to break). Took two attempts at administering epidural as first attempt was put in wrong and blood was spurting!

Within half an hour, baby's heart rate dropped dangerously and cord prolapse was discovered (most likely due to manual breaking of waters which caused cord to slip past baby's head as baby wasn't far down enough yet). I was rushed then for EMCS. Baby was born healthy (I was traumatised for a while).

Sorry to hear of your traumatic experience. It's a terrifying experience that can leave a mark so I would echo pp's recommendation for a proper hospital de-brief. I didn't do that and wish I had have.

No epidural with my 1st natural delivery but i had one with my second which ended up in emergency c section. In fairness I would of ended up having an emergency c section whatever anyway due to baby's position and being distressed. Was told in theatre there was no chance of a natural delivery the way she was positioned. My first back to back labour with no pain relief was less painful than my second labour by far.

Second baby was an induction followed by emergency c section just for your research lol.

This was my experience too. I'd been in labour with no progress for ages, so the epidural was a bit of respite.
When it became apparent that nothing was happening other than I was flat out exhausted, an EMCS was deemed best for all.

We had to stay for 24 hours for blood tests due to my thyroid. As soon as blood tests came back OK we went home.

Yes but mine was 26 years ago , epidural , forceps then ventouse then c section.

were you awake of was you put to sleep for the c section?