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February 13, 2005
If You Think Drugs are Surreal...
Try birth class. Granted, we are taking the hippie birth class with a doula, but yesterday we saw the strangest thing I think I've ever witnessed in my life. It was a video by Pam England, who wrote "Birthing from Within," on the pros and cons of epidurals.
It was called The Elk and the Epidural, and it follows the adventures of a fictional elk, who is having her first baby. Somehow the makers of the video felt that showing real women with real needles in their spines would be too threatening for us gentle Mamas, and thought the image of the Elk Spirit would soothe us. I laughed through the whole thing. I hope it wasn't rude, but really... it was utterly ridiculous. Seeing a bad color illustration (think of that PBS show where the woman would draw illustrations of the story she was telling, in colored chalk) of an elk strapped to a gurney with a catheter, is just too much for a Saturday morning.
However, there was a lot of good, factual information about epidural and narcotic pain relief during labor. I am now more convinced than ever that I want neither. I know complications can and do occur in childbirth, but I also feel like if any woman on the planet has ever given birth without drugs, I can do it too.
Posted by mwashburn at February 13, 2005 09:47 AMPosted to We're Reproducing!
Comments
I really hope you can do it! Had my contractions not been coupling, I think I could have gone without the pain meds (until the c-section, at least). I was far more freaked out by the hour of freezing and shivering thanks to the epidural (or whatever it was) than by the pain of the contractions themselves.
Posted by: Carol at February 17, 2005 11:13 AM
A new study seems to indicate that low-dose epidurals do not increase the odds of Caesarean section and may not increase the length of labor.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4268419.stm
Posted by: steve at February 18, 2005 08:02 AM
I had seen that study, but there's a whole host of other reasons not to do the epidural. If the baby isn't positioned correctly, I could see doing it because labor will probably take longer anyway and be far more uncomfortable; not to mention the fact that if you are just plain exhausted, pain relief is a good idea. But things like immobility, chills, and spinal headache just don't sound appealing to me.
I certainly don't judge anyone who does have one; the whole thing is very much a personal choice. I just don't plan to *if* things progress well. You just have to play it by ear...
Posted by: flygrrl at February 18, 2005 08:38 AM
I would also be interested to know if the study looked at multiple hospitals; I really think what hospital you give birth at has as much as, if not more, to do with whether you end up with a C-section as anything else. Different medical practices vary as far as how "risk-tolerant" they are, how hard they will try to turn a breech baby, how long they will let a woman push, etc.
Posted by: flygrrl at February 18, 2005 01:15 PM