Midwives say women should pay for epidurals

[TheDullWitch]

At least £500 a baby it says here

Call 911 right now, MT. I actually agree with you.

before i post this i should point out that i do understand epidurals are necessary for many people like greensleeves and that others who have been labouring for a long time in agony are entitled to pain relief for their sake and the babies, i do think however that many people choose to use the epidural without even giving themselves the opportunity to try for a natural birth as it has become the norm.

what spidermama says was true for me too, the pain is a necessary part of the experiance for me,i firmly believe it helps you bond with your baby in those first hours and days.

wanted to go drug free anyway but thank god i did.... dd had the cord round her shoulder which wasn't discovered til after she was born, mw knew something was wrong though as heart rate dropped to almost nothing and had me push from 8 cm to get her out as quick as possible. got her out in double quick time and all was well but if i'd had an epidural i couldn't have got her out as quick as you're well into a contraction before it shows up on the monitor, often the mw would tell me i was having a contraction and to push when i had already been pushing for upto 30 secs. my labour would have gone on forever if i had been relying on this and my dd might not have been ok...

I think there are so many differences in the NHS.

I had epidurals both times, but I would be prepared to sacrifice my 'free' epidural if for instance a women that desperatly needed Herceptin was given it because of me saving the NHS money.

But unfortunatly it doesnt work like that, my saving would probably end up as a payrise for somebody, or treating a drug addict/alcoholic.

In an ideal world it would be lovely if we could all have whatever drugs we wanted, epidurals or life saving cancer treatments. The pain from labour isnt going to kill us and I'm sure we would all welcome a life being saved. But I wouldnt trust that this would happen at this stage.

o god, just read that link drosophila!

horrible... so differant from my hospital, went in at 1/2 cm dilated and asked to go home and was given serious abuse by doctor! walked out anyway and came back 12 hours later still only 3cm dilated!

Eve, I don't think anyone would disagree with you, I certainly don't. If the RCM (and the press) had framed the debate in such a way I don't think anyone would mind at all!

Like I said, even with an epidural pushing out a 10lb+ baby was still an indescribably painful process. As the pain started to rack up, for some reason the only thing I was reminded of was soldiers in the Crimea having legs removed without anesthetic. The labour ward sounded like a torture chamber. There was something deeply primal about the noises we were coming out with. A real and direct link to every women in history. Every birth is to an extent a shared experience with every other woman who has experienced it but the amount of pain felt must certainly be comparable to the size of the baby and/or complications, and I'd like to think all women would accept this and not judge others by their own experiences. I'm not trying to turn it into a competition, but I do think anyone who had a baby bigger than mind certainly would have felt even more pain. I grew up in a small mining village where women talked of giving birth with a masculine bravado, 'the woman next door was screaming her head off so I told her to shut it' kind of thing, to which all the other matrons would nod vigerously. I was just a kid but even I could tell they were full of shit.

The epidural did help with the contractions, at 3 cm dilated I was having full blown contractions with barely a second between them to catch my breath, Four hours of this (and only 1cms progress) until the anaesthetist was available was quite enough.

You're right to a certain extent thoug Eve, the pain is part of the experience but I think there's a myth developing around epidurals that you can somehow bypass any discomfort whatsever and somehow (God, kows how in our women loving society) this is being translated as women on birth jolly shocker when my nature they should be suffering. Is it, yet again, just plain old misogyny beast trying a different route?

when by nature they should be suffering, I mean..

Eve, I agree with most of what you're saying. A friend of mine in the US who had her baby 4 months before I had mine didn't even consider anything other than an epidural - which does seem a pity when I know women here who had drug-free births which they found profoundly satisfying and rewarding experiences.
However, I am interested in what you say about pain helping you to bond - can you or anyone else who felt this clarify? For me, the 22 hours of pain before the epidural (and the half hour or so later on when it became dislodged) didn't help with the bonding half so much as the fact that once it was all over, because I'd had the epi I was not so exhausted as I would have been otherwise, and was able to cuddle my baby and put her to the breast immediately she popped out.

How ironic that your name should be Eve. The idea that excruciating, personality-shattering, horrifying pain and terror is somehow useful in promoting bonding with your child is just perverse, destructive hogwash, I'm afraid. Many women have failed to bond with their children and have suffered severe depression, shock and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of poorly managed pain in childbirth.

There really are some very strange attitudes around.

Greensleeves - and I was so polite!

i think what i said about the bonding thing will be unerstood by women who had drug free births that weren't marred by bad medical assistance and unnecessary trauma. there is a amazing clarity in the momennts after the birth during which you are filled with the most amazing feeling of overwhelming love and emotion, which is obviously directed at your new baby. i'm by no means saying that women who take the epidural don't bond with their babies as strongly, but those first moments after the birth aren't something i could have experianced with drugs.

it should also be pointed out that for women who are allowed to find a comfortable position for the labour and don't have complications such as a huge baby to marr the experiance, the body produces an enormous amount of natural pain killers. in my case i'm not exagerating when i say once i started pushing i no longer felt the contractions, only an urge to push. i had by no means a pain free labour, 18 hours of 4 minute interval contractions before this, but your body does cope to a certain degree.

i'm not comparing my situation to yours in any way greensleeves, you had a hideous experiance, and appalling medical treatment and the pain you went through was unneccessary and cruel, i'm merely telling you about my experiance, and letting any future mothers who read this know that a drug free labour can and should be a really rewarding experiance in the right circumstances, it's not for everyone, i just think it's a shame that many women who could enjoy it end up taking the epidural and having episiotomies and their babies sucked out of them, just because they've been scared off by horror stories of very painful births.

Your comments do suggest that bonding is better for women who have had wonderful drug-free births and sailed through the contractions like jubilant dolphins, though, Eve. Which is rather galling to those of us who went to hell and back to birth our babies in appalling circumstances. You may say that you are not comparing your experience to mine, but in your claim about more successful bonding you are doing just that. I bonded with my baby very well and with overwhelming and startling love and protectiveness (once we were able to get the tubes out of him and get him out of SCBU). You contradict yourself in your last post. Either bonding is better for women who have had drug-free births, or it isn't and it makes no difference. You can't have it both ways. And if you are claiming the former, as I believe you are, then you are talking ill-informed, subjective rubbish.

I'm amazed this is even a problem.

I begged (with both births) for an epidural and short of taking the midwives hostage, I pretty much was never going to get one (and didn't!).

How some people get one when they don't really need one, I don't know but I can't believe that it happens that often.

I was asked what pain relief I wanted when discussing my birth plan way before I went into labour and an epidural was offered as a matter of course. It probably depends on where you live like so much treatment these days.

if you'll read my first post again greensleeves i say i think, (i.e. personal opinion not scientifically proven fact!) that it helps in the first few hours.

i don't by any means think you missed out on vital bonding greensleeves, for gods sake adoptive mothers around the world feel closer to their children than some birth mothers do. but i believe that for women who are in a position to feel it it is a wonderful feeling. most of the mothers on my ward who had epidurals were asleep and hour after the birth, i was up breast feeding and changing my baby.

your experiance was horrible greensleeves but your pain was due to another medical condition, not simply labour pains like most women go through. it shouldn't have happened to you, you should have been given an epidural no questions asked and been treated humanely by hospital staff but i just wanted to let any pregnant moms reading this know that not all pain is horrific and traumatising.

how extraordinary (in that it's such a different experience to mine) kittyfish!

I wonder if part of the issue here is about the way we use the term 'bonding'. I have heard many people talk about an amazing rush of warmth, happiness, love etc when they hold their baby directly after the drug-free birth, the intensity of which may well have something to do with the adrenaline/endorphins (?) the body has been producing. I can believe that that is a wonderful experience and something those of us who had epidurals missed out on. However, I am not convinced it is an important part of the 'bonding' process. There are all sorts of claims made about things that help you 'bond' with your baby (breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, and now pain ) but it's very unclear what this term actually means or how it works and there's certainly no evidence that people who don't do them (eg people who bottle feed, people whose babies are in special care and can't be held as much) don't bond as well. It becomes very emotive because the implication is that by missing out on these things we didn't 'bond' as well with our babies and are therefore less good parents.

i had no problems getting an epidural at both of my births, and only waited about 20 mins for each one.

I really would not have coped with the pain.

it will never happen anyway- there is no way that the NHS would start charging for pain relief- regardless of how expensive it is to administer it.

hardly fair on those that would never be able to afford it though.

It's so very kind and sensitive of you to observe that women in my position miss out on something uniquely marvellous and spiritual with their babies which they can never get back, because it's reserved for the "smug-club" of strange women who think there is virtue in suffering unnecessarily and waxing lyrical about agony. Luckily I think it's a load of twisted b@ll*cks, or I might be really hurt by your attitude.

Wow just read that link to the Birth story. I don't inderstand why they sent her home at 3 cm's dilated and stated when she would be giving Birth
How on Earth can anyone say that? I went form 5 cm's to 10 cm's in 2 and half (ish) hours, do they go on text book theories of a centimetre an hour??

Awful! Poor lady!

greensleeves, have you talked to counsellors about what happened to you? your trying to pick a fight on an internet chat site with a complete stranger about and opinion expressed there, anybody can see you have suffered and are still suffering, maybe you should try talking to someone who can help you deal with these demons?

kathy, when i use the word bonding i use it to describe a feeling of closeness i felt to my child, exactly the same as the feeling you get at three in the morning when you're holding them after soothing them back to sleep, as when they take those first steps and your heart explodes with pride. its a sensation of love which every mother feels a thousand times in her childs life. for me this was my first experiance of this sensation and it was made more intense by the rush of hormones and endorphins following the birth. i don't mean it to signify an experiance that if missed out on hampers your ability to love or nurture your baby. it was the moment when i looked at her tiny face and thought: 'i'd go through the pain a hundred times over for her'

I don't think patronizing me is going to redeem your subjective and illogical argument in favour of deliberately subjecting onself to unnecesary pain, Eve, so probably best not to do it. Whether or not I need counselling to deal with my experience really isn't part of this debate. I get irritated with smug, holier-than-thou people who can't sustain their ridiculous assertions and peddle their crazy views to the detriment of others. This was the case before I had my children and it's still the case now.

I wonder how many women here who accepted pain relief in labour feel that their bonding (in the first few hours or subsequently) was impaired in any way. I certainly don't. No endorphine rush could possibly have been stronger than the one I experienced when my son whimpered after failing to breathe for five minutes. You do not know what you are talking about.

Eve, thank you for explaining.
I think you need to be careful with the term 'bonding' though as most people do, I think, understand the term as being related to one's ability to love and nurture one's baby, which is why you are coming across as critical of others' choices.

Not fair to accuse Greensleeves of needing counselling because she is upset by what you have said.

But Eve there is nothing to suggest - and you certainly don't know, how can you - that woman who have used pain relief do not experience the same feelings.

Your ward buddies may be suffered much longer, more tiring labours to you and it may have been this that made them sleep after the birth not the aftermath of the epidural surely.

greensleeves, the purpoese of this site is to express opinions and share stories, not to establish who is right or wrong, everyones opinion is as valid as yours.

if there are any pregnant women reading this in order to make a decision on pain relief i hope that you will still have the courage to make an informed decision about your choices!

in the hospital where i gave birth there were far more stories from women who felt the epidural was pushed on them who regretted it than women who wanted one and didn't get one. i don't know how relevant that is in the grand scheme of things but it made me want to try it without one first, i kept an open mind at all times knowing that every labour is differant and i might change my mind if things got bad but i honestly never reached that point.

evey women is differant, for some like me a drug free labour can be a wonderful experiance and for some it isn't, women should be able to make an informed decision without being pushed one way or another by health professionals or peoples opinions, and a women who genuinely needs one shouldn't have to pay for pain relief. every birth is a phenomenal achievment for any women, no matter how it comes about. if my opinions upset anyone i'm sorry, that wasn't my intention.

Of course all our opinions are valid. I haven't stopped you from expressing yours, several times. But my opinion - and I doubt I am alone in it - is that what you have said is at best ignorant and subjective, and at worst actively detrimental and hurtful to women who have been through experiences you clearly have no idea about and who should not be given cause to question the quality of their bonding with their babies. So I'm expressing my opinion. And I don't think patronising remarks about my needing to see a counsellor, or admonishments about "the purpose of this site" have helped your argument at all. You just come across as a condescending know-it-all who doesn't know how limited her understanding really is.