Quick techie question about epidurals - anyone advise?

[BOOquets]

Might anyone be able to tell me if it's necessary to break waters before hooking you up to an epidural please?
In my labour attempt I was begging for an epidural (DD excrutiatingly back-to-back, no sleep for 48hrs) and the MW said they preferred the membranes to be ruptured first. This naturally sent my contractions into orbit and there was no time for an epidural, DD's heartrate fell (I believe due to my distress which would have abated if I'd got my epi.) Whole thing ended with a crash CSec under general anesthetic.
Thinking about trying a VBAC one day (got to convince DH we need another child first LOL), would like to avoid history repeating itself.
Thanks for any advice.

I had an epidural with DS and the MW broke my waters several hours after it was put in, but this was in France (don't see why that would make a difference but...)

Sorry you had a bad experience

I think it's more likely that the MW wanted to try breaking the waters as a way of speeding on the labour so you didn't need an epidural. But it was bad of them not to explain what they wanted to do. Breaking the waters is not a great thing to do with a back to back labour anyway as it makes it even more painful.

You could put it on your birth plan that you do not consent to having waters broken unless an epidural is already in place, or indeed not at all.

I had same experience as Kasha with ds, also in France. In the hospital where I gave birth having an epidural was almost obligatory (certainly no other pain relief on offer) - seems to be the other way round in the UK from what I hear.

My waters had been leaking slightly for a few days so they induced me (via a drip) to speed me up, but it was still going slowly so she broke the rest of my waters to speed me up, it did speed it up and was agony, gas & air made me sick and I'd already had 2 lots of pethidine so I felt my only option then was an epidural, which I had, which did help, so much for my natural labour though! Still took several hours from waters breaking and epidural to dd being born though, so didn't speed it up loads!
Sorry to hear about your bad experience.

Great advice thanks NUK, would def use it. Nobody mentioned back-to-back at the time, I read it in my notes later, but I do think maybe I could have done it if I'd had a little rest with the epidural. MW was determined to get the baby out before her shift ended but I couldn't care less who delivered it, just wanted to stop and get my breath!
Anyway, this was 4yrs ago and I've had an elective CSec since but thinking about a No3.
Thanks all.

hi, I had an epidural with my second and they broke my waters after the epidural was in. hope this helps