Pain Medication's Role When a Woman Goes into Labor

Once you have begun to integrate the idea of motherhood into your life, one of the first challenges you will meet is the fear (or curiosity) of the pain that is common to labor and birth. The subject is one of many that family, friends and strangers will ask questions about or on which they'll make comments.Thus, the common woman begins to question her capability in "handling" the pain of childbirth.

It is important to remember that the pain of childbirth is a pain with purpose, and second, that it is influenced by many factors. Like all other pain, the intensity of contractions causes pain (or intense power, according many), which is a signal to you. It is a signal to avoid injury to your body and that of your baby's. In the case of labor, the path to avoid injury is the same path by which the baby must be born. Avoiding pain by changing positions, emptying the bladder, eating and drinking, and by receiving continuous emotional and physical support will help to protect you and baby and to facilitate the natural progression of the birth experience.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to meet the requirements for natural pain relief in an environment that favors convenience and technology. It is therefore important to choose your birth attendant carefully, as well as the environment in which you will give birth.

There are some indications of when medication for pain relief may be of benefit such as: during routine procedures (i.e. restriction to bed, no food or drink, continuous electronic fetal monitoring), when labor is induced or augmented by medications which cause increased pain, back labor with a posterior baby, very long labors, and labors with a lack of continuous emotional and physical support. Though each of these may have a resolution (i.e. letting the tired mom rest, allowing her to remain out of bed, and attempting to turn a posterior baby), pain relief medications may ease the your anxiety and allow labor to progress efficiently.

However, there are risks to taking any pain medication that every mother should be aware of before accepting them. The less risky of medications are narcotics. These may take the edge off the pain but are not without side effects. Narcotics may make you and baby sleepy, resulting in an inability to handle contractions well and feeding difficulties or need for medical intervention in your baby.

The most common choice of pain relief is epidural anesthesia. Once administered, your labor will become a medical event. You are required to have intravenous fluids and continuous electronic fetal monitoring as well as restriction of movement and the increased possibility of needing a urinary catheter. An epidural may cause your labor to slow down, especially you are less than five centimeters dilated when it is administered, though for a woman who has become exhausted because of a very long labor, the epidural may allow her body to progress more efficiently. Pitocin may be required to speed up the labor. Once the second stage (pushing phase) of labor is reached, lack of feeling will prolong the birth and make it more difficult. In this situation, if you and baby are doing well, it is best to "labor down" and wait for the urge to push or until the baby's head is visible to begin pushing. This will reduce your chance of becoming overly tired and will help to keep your baby's heart rate at a normal pace.

Women who have an epidural are more likely to develop a fever after birth. If you do have a fever, your baby will likely be taken to the nursery and given and IV and a blood test to make sure he is healthy. Other risks of epidurals include: difficulty breathing and/or feeding in the newborn, increased chance of a vacuum extraction, forceps or cesarean delivery, and backache lasting for days after delivery.

Other pain relief medications include the sterile water block (for back labor, with no known side-effects) and spinal anesthesia (an injection in the spine, similar to an epidural with less of a numbing effect).

Choosing a supportive birth attendant, letting labor start on its own, staying home as long as possible and remaining active throughout labor will increase your probability of having a normal and safe delivery.

Be confident in your ability to give birth, address your fears before labor and if you need pain medication, continue to work toward as normal a birth as possible. Your efforts will bring strength to your confidence as a woman and mother. You cannot guarantee the outcome, but you can influence it, and both you and your baby will benefit.