Women who have epidurals find it harder to breast-feed

[hulababy]

...according to a report in The Sunday Times today.

WOMEN who give birth with the aid of pain-relieving epidurals find it harder to breast-feed than those who give birth naturally, a study has found.

The research suggests that some of the drugs used in epidurals make their way into babies? bloodstreams, subtly affecting their brains and development for weeks afterwards ? including making them less willing to breast-feed.

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In a commentary on the research, published today, one expert suggests the impact of epidurals on breast-feeding should be officially classed as an ?adverse drug reaction?.

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Such a link could help explain why many British women fail to breast-feed, with 55% giving up within six weeks of birth. More than a third of women give up within a week, saying their babies simply refuse to breast-feed.

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Other researchers support Torvaldsen?s findings. A study at Toronto University, Canada, of 177 women found they were less likely to be breast-feeding after six weeks if they had been given an epidural with fentanyl.

bf counsellors - cheaper than an epidural & all the medical bits that go with it.

I've had an epidural & bf long term - no probs.

What counts is support & info on bf -was this loked at in the study?

I had a full (not mobile) epidural and cs with dd - she bf like a pro from an hour after the birth. I had a mobile epidural and normal birth with ds and struggled to bf - persevered for 6 months though.

or it could be that women who have had epidurals have had longer, harder, more painful labours and are therefore knackered, as is baby.

I had an epidural with ds and he latched on immediatley with no problems.

I bf for 6 days, my choice to give up as it was bloody painful!

I've bf two babies (still doing DS2 - 3 months), had c-section with epidural with DS1 and totally natural birth with DS2 (not intended, but too quick for epidural to be available !). Both latched on almost immediately. The only noticeable difference I found was that my milk came in quicker after the natural birth, or maybe that was because he was my second child and my boobs were more practised at it!?!? Or DS1 was v sleepy, so maybe he didn't suck as much to stimulate it.

I don't think epidurals can be necessarily the main reason why many British women don't breastfeed (don't think "fail" is very helpful...). There are lots of factors affecting this.

had epidurals with both of mine. bfed ds for 6 months, still bfeeding dd at 17 months...

load of tosh I think,

I had an epidural, only just stopped BF this week at 9.5 months,

2 friend sdidn't have them one only BF for 1 week the other 6 weeks.

I suspect you could be spot on, Colditz. Most women try to go without an epidural and only ask for one when in extreme pain during a long labour, which could in itself not put you in the best frame of mind for breastfeeding.

I'm another one who had an epidural, with lots of top ups, then an emergency cs, and breastfed in the recovery room with no problems.

It doesn't sound like a very scientific study to me. 177 women? Not that many, is it?

I agree with colditz too. I had an induction, then mobile epidural, then spinal block and emergency CS with DS and he couldn't wait to get stuck in - BF for about 4months or so.

A friend of mine had a 'natural' water birth (actually the type of birth I would've liked) and had to pack in BF after one week.

177 women in the study? didn't see that. they'd have had a more accurate study if they'd polled this site LOL

I would be interested to know if there was any difference in the support the bf'ding women and bottle feeding women were given (sorry, can't be bothered looking up the study and assume that actually they controlled for this sort of thing...

It's definitely the major factor in the decisions of the people I know who have given up breastfeeding. That and odd advice from drs and midwives. I only know one person who stopped bf'ding shortly after birth because she wanted to.

I feel sure (based on no research at all ) that better ward based support and advice about potential problems and how to deal with them in advance of birth would lead to an increase in "success" rates.

DS1, pethidine - voracious breastfeeder.

DS2, pethidine for the birth, but GA + blood transfusion due to retained placenta. Was lazy when it came to feeds, but I was also on BP medication too, and we think that may have had an effect.

DS3, epidural and section - another voracious feeder.

Interesting - epi with ds - troubles but got over them after 3 days of no feeding, no epi with dd1 and dd2 - no troubles however as ds was no1 I wouldn't be surprised if entirely unrelated!!lol

Fits with my experience - I think breast feeding failed for me because dd was a rubbish sucker!

I had two spinals (for two caesareans) and had two children who just wouldn't breastfeed. Really interesting to read this - I always thought there was something very odd about their utter inability to have a go on a boob!

n = 177 is woeful - can't make any conclusions on that. They would also need to factor out e.g. desire for a natural birth labour is more likely to go hand in hand with a very strong desire to bf.

I didn't have an epidural with my first pregnancy and she breastfed like a champ until she was 18months. However it hurt so bad I promised myself an epidural this time. Now I'm not so sure. Breastfeeding was wonderful. Is it to big a risk?

Perhaps women who prefer not to have epidurals are also more dedicated to breastfeeding. Hence, this is a correlation and not at all cause and effect.

It's a bit like saying ice cream causes drowning because more ice cream is sold on days when more people drown. There is a potive correlation. But, really, both of these things are a result of hot weather: more peolple buy ice cream on hot days and more people go swimming/boating.

Another anecdote, but I had epidural (and is nothing to do with any lack of desire to bf, more to do with ds generally doing his best not to be born) and apart from a cracked nipple (due to my poor latch because of a lack of bf support) ds had no problems at all bfing.

I haven't read all of the posts, so apologies if this point has already been made, but the article links fentanyl with the problem, but also says "some of the drugs used in epidurals make their way into babies? bloodstreams, subtly affecting their brains and development for weeks afterwards"; fentanyl has a half-life of 2-3 hours.

Excellent point uwila!

UWILA thats a very good point.

The study that this article focuses on wasn't just on 177 women - that was another study from Toronto which supported this research from Australia. The Australian research looked at 416 women who had epidurals and allowed for factors such as maternal age and education.

The other study quoted which was on 177 women was looking specifically at the effect of fentanyl in epidurals and its effect on breastfeeding. Although 177 is a fairly small number, it was a randomized double blind trial which does make the results more likely to be be valid. All the women in this study had epidurals so length of labour, tiredness etc shouldn't affect the results so much.