Just because we can, should we?

Technology has brought us many conveniences, take for example computers. Don’t they provide us with wonderfully efficient, stress free support?…Medicine has also benefited from research and technology. We have learned that handwashing is a good thing and bleeding a patient not so good. There is the question though of how much of a good thing, is still a good thing. I work in the intensive care, I see examples of “just because we can, should we” daily.

Take for examples epidurals. They provide excellent pain relief in the post-operative patient. People are able to sleep (if sleep can be had in a hospital); we all know that sleep is required for healing. They help patients ambulate and deep breathe and cough which is the number 1 way to avoid pneumonia. However are epidurals necessarily a good thing for all labouring women? Epidurals are admittedly the best form of narcotic since they actually stop the pain messages rather then just altering one’s perception of pain, but should every labouring woman in the 21st century have an epidural?

As with every argument there are pros and cons. Reasons for an epidural; epidurals allow the mom to rest, why should one suffer through pain when they don’t have too, not all labours are equal depending on position of baby, some could just plain hurt more then others.

However an epidural will confine you to bed more then otherwise, taking away your body’s natural ability to use positioning and gravity to aid delivery. Epidurals by design block receptors, therefore there is less oxytocin released in response to pelvic floor stretch receptors, causing statistically longer labours and increased risks of medical interventions (like c-sections). I am delivering this baby in the USA; statistically they are the worlds highest at 25% of women having c-sections. Also there is some suggestion of increased difficulty breastfeeding and bonding after epidurals.

My goal for the delivery of this child is to have a “natural childbirth” ie: pain medication free (just the name of it sounds wrong), by publishing that fact here I have now committed myself. Now I know that I have never been in labour before, and many of the readers of this blog have been and used an epidural. (It has been said that the way to get comments to a blog is to publish something controversial) It may well happen that after the first contraction hits that I start begging for that epidural. I haven’t had very much success with relaxing while squeezing an ice cube in my hand for 1 minute (try it sometime), this strategy is supposed to prepare you for labour. My decision to go epidural free is not based on an attitude of “I am woman hear me roar” (I hope), at this point it is based on research which is all I have to go on right now. Wish me luck!