Epidural vs. Natural

danabsd · September 2013

savannah_girl said:

Etta07 said:

I agree with the other ladies labor is totally different.
The anesthesiologist came in at some point and apparently had me sign the paperwork for an epidural if it wasn't for my support team he probably would have come back and given it to me even though I really didn't want it. A woman in labor should not be considered able to give consent because I do not remember signing it and I was totally against it. Anyways educate yourself for a natural delivery if you want and take classes but then leave yourself open to an epidural if you aren't totally opposed to it.

See, at my last two hospital's that I worked for. We had every signle patient sign the consent when they were first admitted. That way it is before any IV drugs, so they can legally sign for it. As long as you are not given pain meds, there is no reason that you can legally sign for it.

We also do consents for the Heb B, circumcision (if a boy), and even emergent C/S. That way if something were to happen to mom, we can just "go" and not risk her/babies life waiting on consent.

As far as I understood from my birthing classes that is totally standard procedure.

sthomas1222 · September 2013

You really should look into the risks vs benefits. There are reasons why people choose to go natural. It's not like we get a medal for it

But most important is deciding what got want & seeing your heart & mind on it. Check out childbirthconnection.org for a good starting place.
The main thing to know is that it's not always just getting an epidural, it opens you up to a lot more interventions (catheter, continuous monitoring, iv for fluids, and in many cases pitocin). When a FTM gets an epidural & pitocin her chance of a c/s is around 31% (you'll find the actual # on that site but I know it's 30-something percent). Yes many many people will resold how they had these things & no problems. But for me it was about reducing my chances of a c/s which meant no drugs. And I wanted to feel my baby come out. I wanted to be part of the process, experience my labor, not just lay there & quite possibly sleep through it. I wanted to be an active, informed participant. But that's just me

If you decide to go natural please get a doula! Best money spent ever! And a supportive provider. No point fighting for something that is natural. A lot of OBs have a hard time being hands off. They're trained to see problems & a lot don't even know how a natural labor is supposed to progress. There are peaks & valleys. You may stay at a 5 for hours & they'll be itching to stay pitocin but is completely normal to have a "stall" then progress from 5-10 very quickly.

Oatoa · September 2013

I'm totally with ksyknelvr73. I was induced and the Pitocin made the contractions strong and close together before I was even close to giving birth. There was no way I would have made it without the epidural. It was a great experience that I do not regret.

There are no wrong decisions here. The important part is at the end of labor, you have a beautiful healthy baby.

JACKIE_RS88 · September 2013

My family is full of athletes and physically strong people - I am the odd man out. Yet I set my mind to it and had a natural birth. None of them can believe **I** had a natural birth...the weakling. I prepared, I know a lot of people say I'm just going with the punches and not have a birth plan. I knew what I wanted and I knew there were many things that could go wrong and throw my plan out the window - you gotta be realistic. I wanted a natural birth but I didn't know what labor would feel like until I lived it.

I did hypnobirthing and it helped a lot. I also took Bradley classes and felt knowledgeable about my options. My doula was a saint and I had the birth that I wanted. I knew once I was in transition the pain would be unbearable - I just kept telling myself it was too late for meds there and the pain was going to hurt - it's labor, its supposed to hurt but it wasn't going to kill me.

awisern · September 2013

ksyknelvr73 said:
I had an epidural and I would/will do it again in a heartbeat. The contractions were pretty bad for me. I was also induced so I had pitocin making them stronger and more painful. However, my epidural wore off right before I was set to push so I felt everything, and to be honest, I thought the actual birth wasn't that bad pain-wise without the epidural. It's weird b/c for me the contractions were unbearable but the actual delivery and pushing wasn't.

I could have written this word for word!

I even had to attempt the epi three times (it wouldn't go in) so they ended up having me lay down and it went right in. I would still do it again!

peachysweet4 · September 2013

I loved my epi and plan on getting it again.

sthomas1222 · October 2013

czarmom said:
My opinion - the best plan is no plan. I had planned to get an epidural regardless, however, I ended up having a torn cervix and losing half my blood count. That really threw me for a loop in the first two postpartum weeks. The doctor said if I hadn't had an epidural, I would have had to go into emergency surgery because there were literally three people trying to fix me and it couldn't have been done without pain meds. My point is - I didn't anticipate any of that. My birth went well and all this happened afterwards. You just can't plan for what may or may not happen, so better to just go with the flow as it comes that day.

Our Bradley instructor aid to call it birth preferences. I personally think it's very important to know what you do & do not want. We rates things in the order we would be open to them (membrane stripping, pitocin, break water, c/s, etc) we were educated about each of these tools, when they might be good things to use & when to try something else first. Best thing we learned was BRAIN:
B: benefits
R: Risks
A: alternatives
I: intuition
N: what happens if we do Nothing?

Also is equally important to state what you want after the birth such as immediate skin to skin if baby is ok, rooming in, delayed bath, no formula/pacifiers, etc... whatever it it is that you want postpartum.

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