Pros and Cons of Painless Delivery
What makes childbirth painless? It is the administration of an epidural. While many mothers to be swear by it, there are others who want to go through the whole experience of labor and delivery naturally. An epidural is an injection of an anesthetic into the spine (epidural area).
Pros
- The truth is that labor pain is the mother of all pains, and if you can experience a positive childbirth experience minus the pain — why not? Epidurals help a woman cope better with post-par tum depression or exhaustion better.
- An epidural helps if your baby is not facing your backbone, and is not moving from the position in which it faces the belly button. The epidural injection will relax your vaginal muscles and provide space for the baby to descend.
- A painless delivery by way of an epidural means there is a dip in the blood pressure of the mother. This is a benefit, because in natural labor, the mother has high BP and there are risks of the pressure reaching dangerously high levels and ending in a stroke.
- An epidural makes it easy if the doctor has to carry out a forceps delivery or when an emergency C-section is needed.
- Studies show that epidurals prevent damage that would otherwise occur to the pelvic muscles during a normal delivery.
Cons
- Epidurals could cause backache, dizziness or shivering.
- A dip in the mother’s BP during labor can lead to a slowing down of the heart beat rate in the baby, and if it doesn’t return to normalcy despite drugs/fluids, a Cesarean has to be carried out.
- There is also the risk of a mother-to-be experiencing severe headaches because of the fluid of the spine leaking.
- In certain cases, albeit very rare, there are chances of irretrievable damage to the nerves.
- Some studies have suggested that babies born in a painless delivery procedure could be a little slow and pose breastfeeding problems.
- An epidural is likely to cause numbness in the lower parts of the body after delivery. You may need help while walking because of the numb feeling.
Epidural anesthesia is the most popular method of pain relief during labor. Women request an epidural by name more than any other method of pain relief. More than 50% of women giving birth at hospitals use epidural anesthesia.