best pain relief during labour

[BellyBelly]

Saying an epidural is safe for babies is not correct, you can't make statements like that if you haven't researched it. Did you know epidurals lower YOUR blood pressure while means less blood hence oxygen flow to the baby too? A baby can go into distress from it, I have seen it happen, mum was so close to birth but opted for an epi, baby crashed, they tried vacuum and forceps, both failed and it was an emergency c/s.

When people sing praises of epis which do have their place, they are talking up the risk of episiotomy, which can also result in infected stitches and women having to be restitched (not rare ocurrances, bb members have had this), vacuum and forceps which can fail and they can also result in pelvic floor issues, like prolapse and incontinence (again BB members have had this). Not to mention crashing babies - this also happened to the woman who runs Calmbirth at BB, she had a breech bub in a bad position and her baby crashed on the table after the epi and was in intensive care for ages because I am pretty sure she had to be revived for about 30 mins after birth. I cannot take epidurals lightly.

A simple, quick fix has many risks which you dont realise when you promote epidurals. Yes that can be ideal in certain situations. But encouraging people to have them when they can have serious implications and side effects, I think is not on. Need to research something properly before saying its safe, or the best thing... because with any intervention there are side effects. Just because you read it in books which you think are anti-intervention or on forums like this, doesn't mean it's just someone's opinion, its based on fact, and just myself doing some births have seen it with my own eyes. And that is very small snippets of the population, I only attend 1-2 births a month, less now, so how many women are going through this then thinking thank god they were in hospital, they had the doctor and hospital to 'save' the baby' when the cause was something they didnt understand?

I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad about their choices. Instead they need to know this BEFORE the birth, so they aren't left with their babies wondering, depressed or feeling guilty like many women do for their choices. If they were aware this could happen in the first place it can save alot of anguish, pain and wondering.

I strongly recommend getting a copy of The Business of Being Born, or reading any of the books BellyBelly recommends so you can get some facts and information about what you're getting into. By all means choose intervention if you need or want it. But at least understand what you're getting into and encouraging others to get into.