Warning a woman in labour is useless though!

She needs encouragement and support, which she often doesn't have, and will look for the weakest link to get her that epidural! They also don't elaborate about how the epi can lower your blood pressure and make the baby go into distress etc which I have seen happen. Its all the 'you might get a headache, very low risk of paralysis - they focus on the big things which are very rare to make you feel better about it.