Epidurals vs. Spinals: Labor Anesthetics Explained
If you've not gone through labor yourself, then you've likely heard someone else's delivery story, chocked-full of advice and warning: do get the epidural, don't get the epidural. Swayed by a multitude of variables, each woman's experience with labor anesthetics and analgesics can be as different as night and day, feeling like the best thing since over-the-counter emergency contraception to one lady and like pure hell to another. So what's to distinguish these differing experiences? Should you opt for the epidural, or against it?
The answer is, opting for neuraxial anesthesia (epidurals and/or spinals) depends on the individual. Not every woman is comfortable with the sensations of numbness and heaviness that go along with bathing your spinal nerve roots in a cocktail of local anesthetic and opioid drugs (often bupivicaine and a special type of morphine called duramorph). Receiving an epidural also means that for the next several hours of labor until the baby is born, mom cannot get up from bed, walk, or eat food or dark liquids (all safety or precautionary measures). For women who have very low blood pressure, skin infections on the lower back, or who have had back surgeries and/or conditions like scoliosis, epidural placement may be contraindicated.
The good news is, however, for the majority of laboring women, epidural and spinal placement is extremely safe, for mom and baby. That said, it's worth listing the several risks you might hear when you request an epidural. The first and most common is that the epidural won't work. In one out of 10 women, the epidural will be "patchy," covering half, part, or most but not all of the area that is meant to be numb. In this case, the anesthesiologist administering the epidural might take out the original sterile catheter and try to place a second into a better location within the epidural space.
Other risks include infection (just as with anything entering from the outside environment: IVs, catheters, needles), headache, and damage to nerves. All of these are extremely rare however, occurring in only one in 100 women for headache and one in several thousand women for temporary nerve damage.
We value and respect the experiences of all of our HERWriters, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.
Add a Comment2 Comments
I am an expert of epidural and given a lot of epidural anaesthesia, for operations and also for analgesia in normal deliveries.
my experience is :
I leave a catheter in every patient of normal delivery, Now we can have effect for any length of time. No need to add any narcotics.
These ladies never feel numbness in legs,
They keep walking, no weakness in legs
There is no fall of blood pressure I say no change in BP before and after
She will have full control on urination. No catheter is needed.
Labor pain causes spasm in circular muscles and shuts the out let. The epidural break this spasm of circular muscles of pelvis, open the out let and make the passage wide, thus it reduces the delivery time moderately. Longer labor is cut short. There is no change, in FHR. No need of pitocin.
The epidural has no effect on contractions of uterus, The contraction of uterus will remain normal. There is no change in bearing down efforts. She will push with more force, which was restricted due to pain.
The passage was narrowed before caused by spasm of pelvic muscles due to pain becomes more wide and give more room to the foetus to slip down without any pressure.
No headache is reported so far, we don’t puncture the dura, as in spinal. No complication is experienced
I did my post graduation in Anaesthesia from U.K. and worked with Lee who is well known in world for epidural anaesthesia. I have given about 40,000 epidural for operations, Backaches, Sciatica pain, Painless deliveries. I am here to develop confidence of ladies for painless labor and make it popular
May 8, 2010 - 10:21amThis Comment
I am an expert of epidural and given a lot of epidural anaesthesia, for operations and also for analgesia in normal deliveries.
my experience is :
I leave a catheter in every patient of normal delivery, Now we can have effect for any length of time. No need to add any narcotics.
These ladies never feel numbness in legs,
They keep walking, no weakness in legs
There is no fall of blood pressure I say no change in BP before and after
She will have full control on urination. No catheter is needed.
Labor pain causes spasm in circular muscles and shuts the out let. The epidural break this spasm of circular muscles of pelvis, open the out let and make the passage wide, thus it reduces the delivery time moderately. Longer labor is cut short. There is no change, in FHR. No need of pitocin.
The epidural has no effect on contractions of uterus, The contraction of uterus will remain normal. There is no change in bearing down efforts. She will push with more force, which was restricted due to pain.
The passage was narrowed before caused by spasm of pelvic muscles due to pain becomes more wide and give more room to the foetus to slip down without any pressure.
No headache is reported so far, we don’t puncture the dura, as in spinal. No complication is experienced
I did my post graduation in Anaesthesia from U.K. and worked with Lee who is well known in world for epidural anaesthesia. I have given about 40,000 epidural for operations, Backaches, Sciatica pain, Painless deliveries. I am here to develop confidence of ladies for painless labor and make it popular
May 8, 2010 - 10:22am