Pethidine- your experiences

[Luckyelephant1]

Hi, I'm FTM 37 weeks and finalising my birth plan, specifically pain relief options.

My ideal birth would be paracetamol, Tens, be very mobile and upright and then to be in a birthing pool in an MLU just using gas and air, breathing techniques etc. Of course I know that may not be the reality and I may need something stronger, especially if I need to be induced, or if labour ends up being ridiculously long, etc.

My hospital uses Pethidine as their main opioid painkiller. I can't decide whether to accept Pethidine or go straight to an epidural. I'm kind of leaning away from Pethidine as I don't want to feel totally spaced out and out of control which I've heard is common, and I'm the kind of person who hates feeling out of control. At least with gas and air if you feel spaced out you just stop using it, whereas you can't reverse Pethidine once administered. However I know that midwives can adminster this in an MLU which is a major pro, whereas obviously with an epidural you need to be on the delivery suite (my MLU is attached so I guess that's not the worst thing, but it's just the change in environment etc that might disrupt my flow).

I'd rather not have either as I want to remain as mobile as possible, but interested to hear other people's experiences with Pethidine. Would I be silly to decline it and go straight for an epidural? Did you still feel very spaced out after delivery? Etc...

@Horehound That's very kind of you... I feel like as a first time mum, I was like "she's sleeping, she doesn't want milk" and didn't really realise that I needed to force the issue! I assumed all babies came out screaming for milk when they needed it!! ;-)

She was fine - 48 hours on the sunbed and midwives enforcing a strict feeding regime on me... she is now a greedy and opinionated 4 year old, so didn't do her any harm!! ;-)

But yes, I did blame myself for not doing more - and the drugs for making us both too dopey/chilled out!

@Luckyelephant1

Such a mixed bag of experiences! I'm just gonna have to go with the flow. Hoping my labour is straightforward and I can cope with just the pool and gas and air. Still thinking I'd rather have epidural than peth though. I'm the type that (pre-pregnancy of course) always pukes when I'm hungover, feels sick with one cigarette, gets migraines now and then, etc, so even though I know opiates are completely different I have a feeling peth would make me feel horrendous and sick too. But let's see! Thanks for all the responses x

Just to reassure you, I am also VERY vomity with alcohol and dizziness however I was fine on that score during labour.

I think I was sick once each time, but quite suddenly so I didn't have any of the awful lingering nausea that comes with being drunk/hungover. I wasn't nauseous before or after vomiting. Part of me thinks that it was just some kind of Pavlovian response and my body thinking "she's pissed again : evacuate!!

Terrible stuff. I can’t stand it. Doesn’t reduce pain, just your capacity to think clearly. It totally levels me and makes me feel like I’m in an exhausted drunken stupor AND in pain. It sucks, basically.
Epidural all the way though! That’s the wave I ride.

Yes! It made me puke relentlessly as well!
Horrible! Give it the massive swerve OP.

I had pethidine with my first and it stopped my labour, turning a very "nice" labour into something quite horrific. I was advised not to have it with my second.

@SillyBry honestly your experience is identical to mine. I asked to be discharged the evening Ds was born (at 05.37am) got home around 10pm and I just slept with him and didn't know or think to keep waking him and try to feed!! So after a few days of him being so sleepy midwife told us to go back to hospital, he spent 48 hours under two lights and I was also given a feeding regime.
I hate thinking back to that week, it was utter hell. But as you say, they are all fine now :) :)

It probably should be spoken about more tbh!!

@Horehound I felt like I aged about 20 years in that first week!!! And it gave me a complex over feeding... timing how long she fed for, thinking she wasn't feeding enough etc!
It's hard though as trying to feed a sleepy baby is impossible... they were like "strip her off and wash her to wake her..." nothing like wet wiping a baby whilst shoving it on your boob!!!!

Oh god that's horrendous! @SillyBry luckily I didn't have to do that. I had to do combi feeding and it was every 2 hours 60 ml. I had to try him on breast, if that didn't work it was the expressed milk (about 10-20ml) topped up with formula. I was so silly I was adamant I wanted him to have as much BM as possible and it took a full two hours to pump the 10-20mls so I was just constantly doing it and very little sleep. Even after a 72 hour labour! I think it aged me too lol once home after two weeks I finally managed to get him to BM and he's only just finished BF at 22 months although ironically I hated BF. Maybe it was because of all the stress at the beginning but I just bloody hated it!

@Horehound that’s amazing, well done you for persevering! What a superhero. I BF to a year… and typically hated it too 🤣
I mean, there were lovely moments, but mine was distracted by everything when feeding, so I felt like I spent most of that year spraying milk everywhere!!
Thankfully I found expressing relatively easy, so I really enjoyed her one expressed bottle a day!

It made me incredibly sleepy but I still felt all of the pain. It wasn't a good combination