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Childbirth

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

Original poster

Use of diamorphine during childbirth.

51 replies

SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:30

During the delivery of my DS, my wife as given diamorphine as a pain killer. We were asked if we'd like to try an experimental form of pain control. Assuming this was all scientficly above board, and being very young and never having a child before, and just trusting the health professionals, we agreed. This was at the former Princess Mary Hospital of Newcastle Upon Tyne, back in 1991.

Immediately after the injection, my wife went all woozy, and the contractions shut down. Thankfully, ten hours later we were delivered of a healthy son. Less happily it took over a year for my wife to recover. Happily, we then went on and have two beautiful daughters, before I got the snip and put the end to all that! [grin¨]

My question is - does anyone have any knowledge of the use of diamorphine as a childbirth pain controller. FYI, diamorphine is clinical heroin.

ta

OP posts:
DelsParadiseWife · 31/03/2010 19:33

What did your wife take a year to recover from? Physical recovery or psychological?

coldtits · 31/03/2010 19:36

FYI, your forum is open to guests, and I read this idea there a couple of hours ago.

Nil points for originality. We don't mind being trolled VERY much, but TRY to keep it amusing please, MR CUK

TotalChaos · 31/03/2010 19:42

I think this may be a genuine question, since Diamorphine also made me woozy, and stopped my contractions as well (I ended up with a distressed baby and on a drip to start contractions/dilation up again) I had been warned this could happen at antenatal classes, but was in too much pain to cope with just gas and air, and didn't have the presence of mind to request an epidural.

Btw pethidine, another opiate drug, has been around for several decades to use as pain relief in labour. Not sure of the difference between diamorphine and pethidine.

coldtits · 31/03/2010 19:43

SORRY

I've just realised this is a genuine question

short term use not contraindicated

Original poster
SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:44

coldtits, if you'd bothered to read the whole post, you would have understood this is genuine - the text of the posting in CUK was...

I'll probably rejoin at some point, as there are some questions I genuinely want to ask - why my wife was given diamorphine as a pain-killer during the delivery of our first-born. ( That's clinical heroin, and definitely contra-indicated. ).

OK? Happy now?

DelsParadiseWife: physical. Partly due to having to having an emergency episiotomy, partly due to the exhaustion of forty hours of labour, but, admittedly, probably due to our son being 10lb 12oz, and my wife is just over 5 foot tall.

OP posts:
Babieseverywhere · 31/03/2010 19:45

coldtits, I think this is a serious post from the OP. He mentioned wanting to ask this question on their own forum.

SomewhatThere, It is offered routinally during a labour these days, under another name Pethidine (hope I spelt that correctly)

It might be worth contacting the hospital in question and asking them for birth afterthoughts' session to go though your birth records with you and your wife. They are the best people to ask what happened and why.

HTH

Original poster
SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:45

coldtits : no worries.

TotalChaos - if I may ask, when did you have diamorphine, and where?

OP posts:
AvadaKedavra · 31/03/2010 19:47

Just wondering why this is bothering you/needs addressing almost 20 years later? Have there been after effects?

TotalChaos · 31/03/2010 19:48

2004 in Liverpool.

btw I don't know if you've heard of the term "cascade of intervention" - idea being that certain procedures (fetal monitoring on a bed) and drugs such as pethidine/diamorphine/epidural can lead to a more complicated labour with further intervention, such as episiotomy/ventouse/forceps/section.

Original poster
SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:48

Diamorphine and Pethidine (spelling correct) are different chemicals. The hospital in question no longer exists. I do have the birth records, as we've since moved abroad, but there is, funnily enough, no mention of diamorphine.

OP posts:
Babieseverywhere · 31/03/2010 19:49

"probably due to our son being 10lb 12oz"
Out of interest were your girls lighter ?

Original poster
SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:53

It's been bugging me since we emigrated, because I mentioned it to the doctors here, and they flatly refused to believe that anyone would prescribe diamorphine for childbirth pain relief. Now, my view has always been, and continues to be, that one of the best places to have a baby is in the UK. So don't get me wrong on that. So, it's only a little bug, but it does bother me, and I'd be delighted to here others experiences.

Thanks to TotalChaos, for example, I know we weren't the only ones! And, despite that fact that it wasn't recorded in the birth records, we didn't imagine it.

OP posts:
Original poster
SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:55

The girls were 6lbs or so. The second one didn't even require stitches - and it all happened so quickly, DW (is that right) didn't get pain relief.

OP posts:
Original poster
SomewhatThere · 31/03/2010 19:57

Darn - I should know better... I just searched on diamorphine and childbirth, and got a whole load of hits... on this site.

Anyway - thanks for the help. It seems it's normal procedure in the UK. Oh well. My wife help pioneer it!

OP posts:
Trebuchet · 31/03/2010 19:58

I hear that its much more used in the north east and in scotland, my sis had it for her eldest who is 12. They're in Newcastle at the rvi

toldyouso · 31/03/2010 19:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sneezecake · 31/03/2010 20:01

by no stretch of the imagination is pethidine and diamorphine the same drug.
diamorphine can be given intrathecally ie in the spine (much like an epidural) as a spinal anaesthetic (different ever so slightly to an epidural)
was this the way it was administered?
it's also a bit odd that it has not been documented, is it on the prescription sheet?

MrsMeow · 31/03/2010 20:03

I had diamorphine when probably about 20 hours or so into a 30 hour labour with my first baby. I'm 100% certain of this, and I remember that it made me feel very odd - I was focusing on the numbers on the bottom of the glass I was drinking out of, and pinching my cheeks like a mad woman. Totally off my face, actually!

I was so exhausted and in so much pain by this point though that I would have given my left arm for some decent pain relief. I had no idea that giving diamorphine was frowned upon? I know that they don't give certain drugs too close to the baby actually being born though, as it can cross over and make the baby very drowsy.

This was in C h e s t e r, in 2000.

susiey · 31/03/2010 20:32

I had diamorphine during both my labours and loved it it gave me the feeling thof rest even if I wasn't. Labour progressed fine and both were born naturally and easily enough
these births were in 2005 and 2007
am planning on having some this time
round as well. epidurals are a no for me and diamorphine was a fab!

NoahAndTheWhale · 31/03/2010 20:35

I had it in both of my labours in 2003 and 2005. It sent me to sleep and stopped my ability to push. Am annoyed I did have it with my DD's birth in 2005 but it didn't cause any problems with either birth, apart from me falling asleep.

fanjolina · 31/03/2010 20:48

My mum was given diamorphine in the 70s during childbirth.

snorkie · 31/03/2010 20:59

I had diamorphine after two shots of pethadine during a very long labour in 1991. It sent me to sleep, but had an almost magical effect on the cervix which went to fully dilated by the time I awoke. It wasn't a standard labour though as the baby had died, so I always assumed this ment they had more flexibility over what drugs they could safely use.

coldtits · 31/03/2010 21:23

SomewhatThere - if you'd bothered not trolling in the first place, my first post may not have been suspicious of your motives. Why don't you apologise to some of the people your ilk have upset before laying into them?

teamcullen · 31/03/2010 21:24

snorkie

I had diamorphine in 1996 with DD1. It gave me an itchy nose and sent me to sleep. I only had the one dose. After it wore off I had an epidural.

To be honest, I think it was worse for DH, because he had to sit in the chair all night while I was flat out and the midwife wouldnt let him sleep!

I found gas and air worse. Now that really did send me loopy

TheHeathenOfSuburbia · 31/03/2010 21:43

When I had DD in 2007, the booklet we were given on 'your pain relief options' included diamorphine. Tho' I had pethidine myself.

I mean, when push comes to shove (as it were), it's just another opiate, isn't it?

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