I'm feeling compelled to talk about the Epidural. I didn't have one because, frankly, I was terrified of the negative things I'd heard about them. Things like; prolonged labour, escalating interventions, possible (although highly unlikely) paralysis, a (gasp) catheter, not to mention having a ridiculously long needle put in my back while I sit still through contractions.
I just finished reading this Today's Parent article about epidurals. They have a nice balanced approach on the subject. They talk about how every woman has her own idea or vision of her delivery and most make their decision based on those ideas.
In my experience, my hospital was really pushing the drugs. They offered to put them 'on order' for me when I walked in the door and offered the epidural another handful of times. My mom was there with constant positive reinforcement and, at some point, I found the zone and didn't feel a need for drugs at all. It was only my initial fear that I had to overcome.
Somewhere in the pushing stage, my attending doctor said that she was going to have to pass my good karma around the ward. It was only later that I realized I was in a hospital with a 90+% epidural rate. At that rate, I may have been the only non-anesthetized mom she'd seen this year. I should say that I was remarkably calm and sleeping between contractions too.
I feel happy and satisfied with my labour experience because I feel like I really did experience it. I'm sure that's true for women who have epidurals too.
Anyone want to talk about their experience?
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My first birth was by emergency c-section at 27 weeks, the second I wanted to go drug-free, try hypnobirthing.
ReplyDeleteInstead I had contractions that didn't have gaps between them, there was no such thing as 2 or 5 min between contractions like you see on TV, I endured this for 22 hours and was only 3cm dilated at hour 22, the hospital (Mount Sinai) staff never offered epidural untill they realised that I was only 3 cm after 22 hours. I asked for Epidural finally was was 9cm within a few minutes, it took me 2 hours to push the baby out...24 hours in total lol
Apparently epidural is often used to kick start the labour if your body stops progressing :)
see and i was only in hard labour for 3 hours. big difference.
ReplyDeletei've also been told that drug free is why i have such an alert and non-sleeping baby but i know you have a baby that doesn't sleep well too.
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