Epidural failed on 1 side, why? (nervous for it to happen again this time)

[Keepingbusyeating]

Not sure if I need to add a TW if you don’t want to read about pain in childbirth!

1st birth, was induced and had the oxytocin drip, had an epidural before starting the drip, a few hours later it stopped working on one side but felt like my whole body. I was in agony and I really don’t want to go through that again. I ended up having a spinal, but then felt so out of it when my DC was born that I could barely hold her as I felt so spaced out.

Why would an epidural fail on 1 side? The anaesthetist re-did it and I was told to lie on the side that was not numb to try and get it flowing that way but it didn’t work.

I am due in a couple of months and VERY nervous

I guess (/hope) without the drip the contractions wouldn’t have been as painful? I’m going to try and delay being induced this time for this reason (I have GD) and try everything to get the baby here before!

This happened with my first, and then again with my second. I needed a general anaesthetic for my first and really struggled with pain afterwards, so I was really worried about my second. I ended up having a spinal and a high dose infusion for my second, and it all went really well. It was lovely. There are technical reasons that it might have happened and it could be related to your anatomy. I suggest having an anaesthetics appointment well in advance so that they can talk to you about it and what they plan to do if it happens a second time (which is pretty unlikely). They’ll be able to put your mind at rest, talk you through options beforehand and then help you more on the day. Good luck, it will be fine!

Fingers crossed it was just one of those things and it doesn’t happen again. Would you consider a hypnobirthing course to learn more mindset and comfort techniques? It helped ease my anxiety going into labour and I felt more in control knowing what my options were. I’d recommend the positive birth company online course x

About 1:8 epidurals don’t work as well as you’d hope. Where it gives a unilateral block it’s usually because there’s tissue in the way either sending the epidural catheter off to one side or stopping the spread of the local. Sometimes a bit of fiddling/changing position fixes it but sometimes it doesn’t. Resiting the epidural at a different level may help but not always. That it’s happened once doesn’t always mean it’ll happen again but unfortunately there’s only one way to find out and that’s to have a go and see if it works. It’s reassuring the spinal worked well (they’re very different techniques) but a spinal can’t be used for labour analgesia. May be worth asking find they have remifentanil available if another epidural fails.

i don’t know the answer to your question about epidurals but if it’s any comfort to you, I have had 2 medication-free birth and second time labour is not a fraction as painful as first time labour. The body is way more capable of pushing out the baby for some reason. Obviously only talking from personal experience but first time labour was excruciating and just hours of torture. Second time labour was very manageable with some ibuprofen then when it started to feel too much the baby popped out.

This happened to me but I could feel it all in my right side especially my hip. When I got a contraction I kept shaking my right leg and the midwife said urghhh can you feel that lol! I was like yes, so someone had to come fix it but it didn’t fully work as I had the oxytocin drip and they don’t usually like you having it without the epidural. I have no idea what it never worked. I wouldn’t get another epidural not because of that but because of the pain I’ve had since. I can pain point where I had it xxx

Hi, I had an epidural with my first and second babies and they both completely failed and made 0 difference. I needed an EMCS with my third and got a spinal straight away instead in case the epidural failed again. If I was to give birth again I'd just skip even attempting the epidural as I'm scared it would be a waste of time and just fail again! I managed with gas and air when it failed so I'd just do that again.

I was also induced with my first and second was spontaneous labour (with third I had a placental abruption do didn't really experience labour). The spontaneous labour literally hurt about 100 times less. With my induction I felt like I was dying from 3cm, with my spontaneous labour I got to 8.5cm at home and it was still hurting less than the induction did.

This happened to me, baby is now 7 weeks old.
It was horrific. When I say I was screaming, my god. I hate causing a scene of any kind, I have a high tolerance for pain but I was literally screaming like I was being attacked.
It was that bad the anaesthetist apologised to me once baby had been born.
I had the pessary, then the drip, all medication failed, in the end they used forceps and gave me an episiotomy.

And yet the worst thing about giving birth was the useless student nurse who told me she was too busy concentrating when I asked her to hold the gas and air while I was pushing 😂 I nearly hit her with the fucking thing.

I’ve never had a caesarean so I’m blindly saying this but I wish I’d requested an elective caesarean. I understand it’s a huge surgery to recover from but I’d have opted for that over the trauma of my daughter’s birth.

Same as @PopThatBenchwith youngest. Epidural was placed too high and I was numb around the waist area but not the groin. Anyway, my blood pressure kept plummeting so it was turned off and I had to manage with gas and air, local anaesthetic to my nether regions, episiotomy and forceps -9lb 8oz baby back to back. Never experienced pain like that before or since.

This happened to me with all three births. It made no difference at all how I was lying so I assume it was anatomical. It was never as bad as the first time though. The second time a Dr (not an anaesthetist) pulled the catheter out a few cms and that got it working again, the third time I asked for a very light epidural quite early on and was then at the pushing stage before it started to fail.

I had epidural with my first and second.

1st time they put it in the wrong place. It was perfectly safe and was a very effective epidural because of where it was place but also because of where it was placed it would mean only an anesthetist could top it up so I could be left waiting, so we removed and re-did it. 2nd attempt only worked on one side, so removed and re-did, 3rd time was perfectly fine.

2nd baby - only worked on one side but kept it in because it was enough pain relief with gas and air as well until my labour got more intense. When it did get more intense, I asked them to re-do it and 2nd attempt was fine, didn't need gas and air anymore.

Although I was poked and prodded quite a lot it was well worth it in my opinion to not have pain. I had no problems recovering from these epidurals by the way. I could walk within a few of hours of giving birth and no lasting issues.

I think it might be just trial and error a bit but you can ask to have it redone if it hasn't worked, or combine it with other pain relief like gas and air.