Midwives say women should pay for epidurals

[TheDullWitch]

At least £500 a baby it says here

Well not alwasy Dinny, its my experience that midwives try to talk you out of having epidurals. I was left bitter and twisted after being persuaded by a midwife I was doing a great job, had a massively high threshold and baby would pop out any minute. She talked me out of having an epidural. When I finally screamed for one 24 hours later, I was so out of it I couldn't tell the consultant my own name and too exhausted to even think about pushing a baby out. It ended in c-section and it took me a long time to get over it tbh. I felt my labour had been mismanaged and never trusted a midwife again. I have also given birth without an epiduarl, but it was a totally different kind of birth and I didn't need one.

Lockets, I don't think they can ever make you have any medical treatment you don't want. Although I do have a friend who had an emergency section and just before they knocked her out she said she was really afraid of GA and didn't want that. And they said "I'm sorry. We don't have time. We need to get this baby out." And out she went.

I think he had 2 or 3. I believe there were complication after one birth and she had to stay in a while. Every day he visited he would spruce himself up. The sad thing is I suspect that Doc's are just as guilty as judging on first impressions.

I also knew a woman who was a nurse and during labour when they wanted to use a Ventouse she told them no way (she knew a child who had been braindamaged by ventouse). SHe said do a CS if you need to but NO ventouse. They were trying to bully her and it wasn't until one of the nurses told the Doc that she was a nurse did they stop and adhere to her wishes. Imangine what it must be like if you don't speak English.

I knew another woman who had to go to Hosp in labour on her own. During labour she was screaming (as you do) and the Doc said to her 'if you don't shut up we will take you downstairs and do a C Section'. Amazing!

Oh fgs! Childbirth is not a flaming compebloomingtition! This whole, "labour's a natural process" argument is a sh!te reason to try and suggest that women somehow are weak for wanting pain relief. It HURTS (I believe one or two people may have mentioned this already...). Yes, it's important to try and minimise complications, but if that's really their argument then they should make a commitment to minimise the use of epidurals by education, support, staffing - and money shouldn't come anywhere near it.

I agree but only in part, epidurals do dramatically increase the need for further intervention ie forceps/ventuse/section and do cause the labour to become longer than it maybe would be without the epidural therefor costing the nhs more money for the epidural then costs for the interentions...

I dont agree with it it the fact it will cause a social divide in that only women who can afford £500 will be able to have one-maybe it shouldn't be £500, but only available if youve gone private. That way there wont be women on the same ward having one when you cant afford it iyswim?

When i had ds1 i was induced,had an epidural, it failed, was topped up twice, failed completely, prolonged the labour and was really c**p, would i have got my money back, had i paid for it? i doubt it!

with ds2 i was determined not to have an epidural and said no when offered as i really didnt see the point when it may not work again, i got through it with focus, tens, gas and air and finally a pretty calm water birth.

These days i think women are too scared sometimes to even contemplate labour without an epidural so opt for one without having had children and without knowing what the pain is actually like, i think women need to have confidence in their bodies that they can do it.
-Im not saying this is womens fault either, its due to a number of things incl poor maternity services and support and overall pretty poor antenatal classes/training.

Anougher thing that they havent thought through properly........

But don't you think most women do try without an epidural first and only ask for one when they really need one? I really don't think it has got that much to do with the pains themselves, but the hours spent in pain. It's different to cope with pains for 12 hours to 30 hours. It's also different to cope with pains if you are induced. Often means stronger contractions, you cannot move around and you don't get much of a break in between......

good post, Busyalexmummy - women are often made to think giving birth is something they won't be able to do without pain relief.

FairyMum, MWs would recommend an epidural if induced, apparently.

I would say on the contrary too. Women are often told that giving birth is something they WILL be able to do without pain relief.

Mine certainly did not Dinny

the mw doing my antenatal classes the first time round advised everyone to have an epidural straight away if induced. poor you, FM

Busyalexsmummy, no they do not dramatically increase the rate of intervention. It goes up by FOUR PER CENT, as I've said below (can't remember if that is compared to the labouring population overall or the population of women who have not had epidurals) and in any case those studies are based on the totally immobilising epidurals which are less common now. This myth that one prick of the needle and they're chopping you open is just scaremongering. I can find you the figures from the consultant who quoted them at me, if you really insist.

And the reason we are scared of labour is not because 21st century living has divorced us from the reality of our bodies and what they are capable of doing. We're scared of it because of long-standing traditions, including that Biblical one of 'in pain and suffering shalt thou bring forth children' which was quoted to Queen Victoria when she wanted pain relief in labour (she won, and referred thereafter to 'blessed, blessed chloroform').

what is the RCM's motivation, then, MI? money saving?

Yes, MI, and also how much is it because "wrong" presentations (those more likely to need instrumental deliveries anyway) tend to be longer and so you're more likely to have an epidural anyway? How much do the epidurals increase the risk of an instrumental delivery, and how many of them would have been instrumental anyway?

Probably that generalised feeling that it's all frightfully natural and we should have the Right Attitude.

And they've probably not checked the stats. I was not hog-whimperingly impressed with some (not all) of the RCM spokespeople.

thing is, the RCM say they want more women to have natural deliveries but don't some mws prefer epidurals as they don't have to tend to the mother as much?

Yes, it would not be much fun to be a midwife if everyone just opted for epidurals or c-sections. Midwives love nothing better than going on training courses to learn how to help women through labour using aromatherapy, acupuncture and a little back massage.

I think also from dealings with the RCM that there tends to be an attitude of 'midwives are all absolutely great'. When I was writing about things you could and couldn't eat in pregnancy, one spokeswoman told me, in all seriousness, that you should ask your midwife and she would refer you to a nutritionist if she didn't know. WTF??

well I didn't have an epidural despite being induced - and not particularly from choice either. I don't think I'm any better than anyone else for that and I would hate to feel that people would not have epidurals becuase of the cost. Birth isn't an Iron Woman competition

Won't the cost of counselling for people who have had dreadful birth experiences outweight the cost of decent pain relief? And people who are already short of decent birth/post natal support and also have money troubles are going to have an even worse time - so more PND perhaps?

If paying 500 quid is an option, I'd put it towards a decent bloody midwife for myself thanks, or hire someone really bossy to remind them of my presence this time so that they realise when I'm actually in labour....

Mi- I'd love for you to find the evidence supporting the fact that it only increases the need for intervention by 4% as I strongly doubt that particular "fact"

uwila, I don't think motherhood has made me violent (I know you were joking really). But I am describing a situation in which I am watching the man I love be in extreme pain on a regaular basis. If someone said to me "oh it's all good, so if you want relief it will cost you 500 quid" I would not be held responsible for my actions.

[x-head] Epidural
Epidurals stir up a huge amount of controversy, so it?s hardly surprising that if you look hard enough, you can find studies that suggest babies born after an epidural are drowsier to start with and then prone to all sorts of problems...but before you get hysterical, put them in a bit of context; today?s epidurals are a lot more sophisticated and don?t ?cosh? you in the same way. Dr Patrick O?Brien, consultant in obstetrics at University College London Hospital, says, ?If you put all the studies together, epidural doesn?t have a negative effect. Occasionally, a top-up epidural can drop the mother?s blood pressure briefly, which can make the baby a bit unhappy for a few minutes, but that really doesn?t last very long and it?s likely to be over well before birth. Barring that, epidural is perfectly safe for the baby.?

What about the warnings that an epidural can kick off the whole ?spiral of intervention?? ?The most recent take on epidurals is that it doesn?t increase the risk of Caesarean. What an epidural does do is make it a bit more difficult to push, so the statistics are that the risk of instrumental delivery goes from seven to 12 per cent. But there?s still an 88 per cent chance you?ll have the baby normally. And it?s important to remember that most of those studies were also done on the old-style epidural, whereas these days most places are using a mobile epidural which doesn?t interferer with your ability to push nearly as much.? And midwives today know a lot more about how to get your delivery working with ? rather than against? an epidural, so that they wait till contractions have moved the baby down to the pelvic floor before telling you to push.

I was wrong, it's five per cent. I can ask O'Brien for the exact studies he's citing, if you absolutely insist. He is, incidentally, also the only consultant I've ever heard of who is utterly relaxed about home birth - he's not a zealot in any way. Lovely bloke too.