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MNHQ

Going on BBC breakfast on Monday a.m to talk about male midwife who thinks women have too many epidurals... your thoughts please

72 replies

carriemumsnet · 12/07/2009 22:20

Hi all
We've been invited on BBC breakfast tomorrow to give Mumsnet's view on this article

We said we thought you might have a few choice words on the subject

Please post your pithy thoughts here tonight, and we'll try and get as many of them across tomorrow am.

Thanks all

MNHQ

OP posts:
plimple · 13/07/2009 12:03

I'm someone who would never consider an epidural unless I had to have a c section.My labour was painful, but I managed it by breathing plus gas and air and felt bloody proud afterwards. I had a 20 hour back to back labour that wasn't easy, but it wasn't interfered with even when I did end up going to hospital after planned home birth due to meconium in waters.
It did feel like a right of passage. It did feel like I should be prepared for the pain to get the reward of the baby. I wasn't afraid of the pain, I knew I could handle it as I'm a woman and we are built to handle it. I think this man is getting stick because he's a man.
Surely the essence of what he's saying is the less intervention the better. I think most people would agree wouldn't they?
So why is everyone jumping down his throat?

hmc · 13/07/2009 12:20

"I'm someone who would never consider an epidural unless I had to have a c section.My labour was painful, but I managed it by breathing plus gas and air and felt bloody proud afterwards."

Oh fgs - this is precisely what is irritating. I managed my second labour without any pain relief at all - so sodding what? But it was about a 1 in 10 on the pain scale compared to off the scale for my first backtoback_ labour. Women who have never experienced back to back labour can be infuriating because they think that they know it all; and frankly they don't have a clue

MrsTittleMouse · 13/07/2009 12:27

Hear hear. I could also add that to properly experience my first delivery, you would have to stay up all night for three nights with no sleep, and vomit for 14 hours straight ensuring that you are completely dehydrated and in ketosis.

No woman ever knows what another's birth experience was like.

ruddynorah · 13/07/2009 12:40

i too wouldn't consider an epidural unless for c section.

dd was back to back. i got stuck at about 7cm, waters having been gone for over 24 hrs so risk of infection. consultant was sent for. he wanted to give me a bit of sytocin, attach a fetal monitor to dd's head, and give me an epidural for the pain i was about to have. thankfully my midwife was lovely and fully supported me in saying no to the monitor and the epi. i did fine. it wasn't so bad. so in that case the medic wanted me to have no feeling, but i wanted to feel it. we're all different.

MrsTittleMouse · 13/07/2009 12:53

But my point is that you never know that you're going to need an epidural until you're in that position of needing one. You can't decide in advance how you're going to feel! I have given birth twice, and I much preferred my delivery without an epidural, even though it was also long and painful. But the thing is that I was hysterical with pain and exhaustion when I had my epidural. I would have been livid if someone had suggested that I should forgo it to improve the intervention statistics. I had enough PTSD to deal with after that delivery as it was.

PS Sadly I'm in the group that even natural birth techniques and one-to-one care would help - I had all that in my first delivery and it still went pear-shaped. I think that some women just aren't designed very well to give birth.

plimple · 13/07/2009 12:54

So are people just getting annoyed about the parts about managing pain and ignoring the fact that he seems to imply that the less intervention the better? I thought it was usually the doctors who are all for intervention whereas this bloke is a midwife and seems to want what most midwives want - less intervention from medics and more support.
I fully expect my next labour to be as long and painful and back to back as first, but still wouldn't consider an epidural. Perhaps I can handle it better (that's the attitude that is annoying) or perhaps you (HMC) had it much worse. Neither of us will ever know. I don't really care, so long as people listen to the underlying message that less intervention is best for Mum and baby which I think most people accept to be true don't they?

ruddynorah · 13/07/2009 13:03

i do plimple. i was so very happy to have had such a good midwife who listened and supported me despite this consultant telling me i would NEED an epidural. if i hadn't been so prepared for this kind of treatment i expect i'd have taken his 'advice' and gone with that.

godzillasbumcheek · 13/07/2009 16:14

I still wonder is there something wrong with pethidine then? You can feel the pain (but lessened, even with back to back labour which i had), and you can still feel to push. Why does everyone jump for an epidural? I can't see the attraction. for some reason the thought of an injection in my spine gives me the creeps. Aren't there things that can go wrong?

juuule · 13/07/2009 16:19

Godzilla, my experience of pethidine was that it did nothing at all to lessen the pain and made me feel drunk. I must have looked out of it because once it took effect everyone more or less ignored me, talking over me and when I asked at one point what was happening one m/w said to an auxilliary 'ignore her, she's not with it anyway'.

I swore I would never have pethidine ever again. I was talked into a half dose on my 2nd baby but it only confirmed that it was useless (for me) as pain relief.

godzillasbumcheek · 13/07/2009 16:22

Fair enough. It probably had a placebo effect on me because i was adamant i wasn't going near an epidural!

godzillasbumcheek · 13/07/2009 16:23

Well actually that can't be true as i fell asleep and woke up pushing DD3 out

But y'know WIM!

juuule · 13/07/2009 17:21

I didn't have an epidural.
I think pethidine must work for some and not others. I've heard other people saying it took the edge off and allowed them to rest.
As I said before it didn't touch the pain for me one jot.

expatinscotland · 13/07/2009 17:33

I had pethindine and it did utter FA for the pain and I barely felt it. I used to drink huge amounts of alcohol and smoke a lot of pot so maybe it takes a lot for something to work for me.

Tried hypnobirthing CD, then tried a hynotherapist friend. I can't be hypnotised, apparently.

I still have nightmares from my drug free delivery.

My aversion to ever feeling that pain was so strong that I actually used my own mind to delay giving birth to DS until I got my fecking epidural.

I wouldn't have given a rat's arse if there was a village around for 'support', for some reason I just didn't like that feeling of being disembowlled.

If that makes me less spiritual, well, I can't say I give a toss.

hunkermunker · 13/07/2009 19:11

HMC, Plimple DID have a back-to-back labour.

I refrain from commenting, generally, on threads like these, because if you talk about giving birth without pain relief, you get called a smug .

But I can't change what happened to me any more than anyone else can - you get the labour you get. Yes, there are things you can do that minimise your chances of needing intervention/pain relief, but there are some situations where it's just necessary.

I would love to have a more open debate about the whole thing, but I refer you back to my second paragraph as to why it's pretty difficult.

VietnameseCobbler · 13/07/2009 19:13

i had nothing every time
I am infintely A Better Person than you drug crazed fiends.

juuule · 13/07/2009 19:18

@ vietnamesecobbler

ABetaDad · 13/07/2009 19:58

If this is what Dr Denis Walsh really said I think he very wrong. Quite frankly until he experiences the pain of childbirth himself how can he know?

OK I don't have a uterus but as it happens I saw friend of mine today and his wife who gave birth 4 months ago. She mentioned this article and how utterly gobsmacked she was by it.

She went on to describe to me the agony of a 3 day 'back-to-back' labour with the first 36 hours being refused entry to the hospital. Then eventualy being taken in and refused eidural for another 24 hours. All of this under midwife supervision. Only when the doctors intervened did she get epidural pain relief. Then she had a C section when the baby became distressed.

What my friend's wife desribed was pretty much exactly what hmc said on Sun 12-Jul-09 23:36:43 about her experience.

Only the woman can know if she wants pain relief and only she can decide. It is not up to anyone else. If a woman is happy not to have pain releif that is fine and no one should push it on her but to deny pain relief to someone when they are begging for it after days in agony is not a 'right of passage' - it is hideously barbaric.

alicecrail · 13/07/2009 20:14

I went into labour, wanting (and expecting, it was my first)as natural a birth as possible. I had planned on going into the midwife birthing unit, but was told when i rang up that it wasn't possible because i was anemic. I thought i would be able to cope on gas and air (i had only gas and air when my leg was broken in 4 places and bent in the wrong direction and i could cope) however, nothing prepared me for having contractions that didn't ease off and were continual with no dilation. Pethidene had no effect whatsoever. I was petrified of having an epidural and was so against the idea up until the point that i actually couldn't breathe at all. An epidural was advised. In the end (24hrs of labour, dilation of only 5cms and a distressed baby) i had to have an emcs. The doctors and midwives were fantastic.

So how this bloke, who will never have to endure this type of pain, can stand up and say it is not needed and that natural birth is good for you, can fuck right off!

(sorry, just had to say my piece)

LeninGrad · 13/07/2009 20:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

plimple · 13/07/2009 22:19

Does he actually say that women shouldn't have pain relief?
I don't think he does. A natural birth does make things easier which is why so many women want one. Then things happen and pain relief and intervention is needed, these things happen, but so long as Mum and baby are OK all is well.
Hospitals are making their maternity units more midwife lead to avoid unnecessary intervention, but medical back up is there for when needed. That doesn't mean all intervention is unnecessary, but I for one opted for a home birth as I was more afraid of intervention than I was of the pain I anticipated.

godzillasbumcheek · 14/07/2009 15:57

wow, good job i wasn't going to go for baby number 4, because i'd have been put right off by reading this thread!

It may be fair to say that i was very lucky, then:
First labour was about 7 and a half hours, then baby 2 was only 45 mins later. Neither was back to back as far as i know.
DD3 gave me only 9 hours (i think, i can't remember). I was ok with no pain relief for all of about 6 hours, when i went into back to back labour (little bugger turned around), screamed for pethidine again , was then left entirely alone, went to sleep and woke up practically pushing DD out!

Compared to 26+ hours of any type of labour, let alone back to back labour, that was a piece of p* i suspect!

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