Little Mama's Lowdown

photo/japajoe

As I climbed up and down the stairs slowly, contracting after each trip up and town, I thought that if I wined long enough and loud enough, my midwives would let me go to the hospital.  By 8pm, 19 hours after active labor began, if my midwives had given me the option to get a C-section, I would have jumped for it.  They weren’t push-overs.

I knew that the practices hospitals commonly practice during labor were not for me, thus I went with a home-birth.  However, by the time my midwives were throwing this natural induction technique and that natural induction technique at me, just so I’d have closer excruciating contractions, an epidural didn’t sound so bad.  I’m so happy they knew that I’d forgotten what kind of birth I wanted.

Reading about epidurals again, 7 weeks after labor, I’m SO thankful for my painstaking experience and just thought I’d remind mamas and future mamas why epidurals aren’t all they’re cracked up to be:

1. Epidural medication gets to the baby. The anesthetic crosses the placenta, is absorbed by fetal tissues, and the concentration rises with the duration of the epidural.  One group of researchers measured umbilical vein levels of anesthetic at one-third of maternal blood levels.
2. Epidurals retard labor progress. Studies consistently show that women who have epidurals have longer labors, and as a result, they are more likely to have oxytocin, instrumental deliveries, and cesarean sections.  Epidural anesthesia disrupts labor’s feedback mechanism.  In an unanesthetized woman, messages from stretch receptors in the cervix and upper vagina stimulate the pituitary gland to secrete more oxytocin.  This increases the tempo of labor.  Later, surges of oxytocin create the urge to bear down.  Epidurals also hinder the rotation of a posterior fetus.
3. Epidurals deprive women of a sense of mastery over labor. Studies show that the key to a positive labor experience is mastery, and that how a woman experiences her labor has a profound long-term impact on her life.  With an epidural, the woman no longer plays an active role in her labor.
4. By minimizing the pain of labor, epidurals deprive woman of labor pains’ beneficial effects. At the time of birth, a woman’s level of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, are found to be 30 times higher than those in non-pregnant women.  Endorphins engender feelings of pleasure and joy.  Since endorphins are secreted in response to pain,by eliminating pain, epidurals also abolish the endorphin response.  Pain also guides a woman in labor.  Typically, the positions and activities that she finds the most comfortable are also those that promote good labor progress or help shift the baby into the optimal position for birth.

To read more complete information on epidurals, check out Mothering Magazine:
•  Epidural Epidemic
•  The Hidden Risk of Epidurals