Natural Childbirth. A lost art.
Posted 21st May 2009 by m03diaz, tagged medical, hospital, pain, pregnancy,, natural childbirth, epidural, labor, lamaze
Every time I have a baby, the first thing the medical staff starts to bug me about is when I want the epidural. It drives me crazy! It got to the point where I specifically had to put in my birth plan to not offer me any drugs unless I asked or medically necessary. With my second son, the nurse was pressuring me so much to ask for the drugs that my husband finally had to ask her to stop or just leave. When I am in labor, I am quiet and concentrating, so it's not like I'm sitting there screaming for them to think I am desperate for pain killers. When I went to Lamaze classes for my first pregnancy, the teacher informed us that the epidural was a very heavy tranquilizer and it had many risks involved. I decided I didn't want to take my chances with it, so after gathering as much information as I could, I decided to go natural. It was the best thing I could have done. With all three pregnancies I have labored at home and because of it, don't spend much time at the hospital before giving birth. With the last one, I was 7 centimeters when I got there, I gave 3 good pushes and the baby was here. I was totally aware of everything going on and therefore was able to take a more active role in my labor. My sons were all completely aware and able to latch on immediately since they weren't slowed down by all the drugs. I didn't risk our lives in anyway and the post partum recovery was amazingly quick. Obviously, if the medical need arose for me to need anesthetics in any way, I would not hesitate to let the doctors make their educated decisions, but as long as everything is going well, I prefer to go natural. This is not to say that women who choose the drugs, are weaker than the ones who don't, it's just that so many young mothers today are so quick to ask for drugs, they miss out on the many joys of doing it the natural way. People always ask me how and why I do it. I always remind them, "Well, it's labor. It's supposed to be work! Expect some pain girls. You're not sitting there eating pancakes!" lol.
1 comment so far...
It's true that epidurals hold an inherent risk to the mother, but not true that it's a heavy sedative or affects the baby. The epidural is injected directly into the mother's spinal column and never enters the circulatory system so therefore, the baby never receives any medication from it. Epidurals are an anethestic which is very different from a sedative, so the mother is as alert and able to interact as she would be without it.
Pain medications, not epidurals, are riskier but still done. Typically, it's a shot of morphine which IS a sedative (unlike the epidural). Pain medications that are injected are also risky to babies since the medication, unlike an epidural, is injected directly into the circulatory system.
With my daughter, I labored at home from 7pm - 3am. When I arrived at hospital, I was 6cm dilated. It was another hour before the epidural was put in and then 3 pushes and she was born. She, too, was born very alert (so much so that it drew continuous comments from the time of her birth until we left, both from medical staff and visitors) and she also fed within a few minutes of being handed over to me.
As I said, I totally applaud women who go the natural route, but there is a huge difference between an epidural and a pain medication - and ultimately, it's the mother's choice.
BTW - I would have said something to the floor supervisor about the nurse pushing the meds on you. That is just patently wrong.
Flag as inappropriate Posted by Phe on 21st May 2009