BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Pregnancy The Epidural is born

After his wife almost died from complications with anesthesia during the birth of their first child, John Bonica,MD, invented the epidural in the 1940s and used it on his wife the second time around.
Nice, right?
Tell your husband that the least he could do is take out the recycling.

Ah, if only the doctors had just left her alone and allowed her to do it without drugs the way nature intended. I had an epidural my first and natural my second. Having done it now without a feel like a total sucker for being scared into it the first time!

Nicki

My daughter in law had two natural childbirths, She said she would do it again.

I dont like the epidural. It can cause back problems and has for both of my wives.

Yea well your not the one tryin to push something the size of a watermelon out something the size of a lemon either. When I decide to have kids I wanna be knocked out and woken up after the baby is born..LOL I don't like pain of any kind and don't honestly think I could go threw childbirth without some kind of pain medication. But hey what do I know I havent had kids yet.

My last baby weight 9 pounds, OUCH!

My father was 12 pounds when he was born. Damn near killed my grandmother I guess. lol

Oh coffeeangel, the epidural doesn't really help for the pain since they need you to feel the contractions if you have a vaginal birth. So they give you oxitocyn (I think that is what it is called, but definitely not oxicotin LOL) to make you feel the contractions.

In all honesty I think they do come faster if you don't use drugs. I had a bad experience the second time around where a doctor told the nurses to make me feel better if I wanted after he told the nurses that I wasn't as far along as they said I was. I think he slowed down the process and then he ended up doing a c-section. I still have a bad feeling about how honest he was really being. I only took the epidural and other pain meds because I thought if I wasn't that far along and the pain was this bad this time around I couldn't hack it. Now I wonder if the nurses were right.

My first and third came natural and fast. And I felt like a million bucks afterward (okay maybe half a mil the third time, age does affect you after a while). The c-section was horrible, I had such swelling, really bad swelling immediately following the birth.

I can only guess that the first two would have been 8 lbs if they went full term. The third went full term and was 8 lbs 1 oz. UGH

The biggest problem with the epidural is that there are many other interventions that come along with it. Lack of mobility for one which leads to a higher risk of vacuum or forceps extraction, greater use of episiotomy (or tearing because of being flat on your back!), and an increased risk of C-section room.

An epidural does have a lessened effect on the fetus than many of the previous drugs, however it is interesting to note that most women do not feel the need for drugs during labor when they are given constant physical and emotional support. This is one of the reason why labor doulas have been so effective in helping women during labor.

I highly recommend that all pregnant women carefully research this topic for themselves instead of just going off of the hollywood version of birth you've seen on TV. *laughing* After two wonderful (though very different) home water births I can safely say that it is nothing like what you tend to see on Television (the vast majority of what I've seen that is).

Angela <><

This is interesting because I had just heard from a Labor Nurse this weekend that the epidural was invented when a doctor noticed the numbing effect cocaine had when applied topically to the skin. And then decided to see what it would do when injected in a spinal block. :-) In the story I heard he used the procedure as a test on himself during a surgery HE was undergoing. :-)

Angela <><