Have The Birth You Want
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I have read on other “mom and baby” blogs comments like: ” For pain free birth get an epidural!”. My epidural was the best thing ever, I was rested and did not feel a thing.” That is until the effect wears off, mind you! I know, epidural anesthesia can be a life saver but do you really know the risk you and your baby are taking?

Everyone would like to believe that epidural anesthesia is safe for you and your baby. It is very difficult to find evidence based information because for the longest time, no one wanted to know! But things have changed! Thanks to people like Professor Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD and his wife, Morgaine Mehl-Madrona.

They say: “Women are almost never given informed consent for epidurals. Even if they were, just read two paragraphs from the package insert that comes with the medication used for epidurals (manufactured by Abbott Laboratories), they might think twice.”

The package insert states:

Local anesthetics rapidly cross the placenta, and when used for epidural, caudal or pudendal anesthesia, can cause varying degrees of maternal, fetal and neonatal toxicity….

Adverse reactions in the parturient, fetus and neonate involve alternations of the central nervous system, peripheral vascular tone and cardiac function….

Neurologic effects following epidural or caudal anesthesia may include spinal block of varying magnitude (including high or total spinal block); hypotension secondary to spinal block; urinary retention; fecal and urinary incontinence; loss of perineal sensation and sexual function; persistent anesthesia, paresthesia, weakness, paralysis of the lower extremities and loss of sphincter control all of which may have slow, incomplete or no recovery; headache; backache; septic meningitis; meningismus; slowing of labor; increased incidence of forceps delivery; cranial nerve palsies due to traction on nerves from loss of cerebrospinal fluid.

Would you sign a consent for an epidural if it included the above language? The Mehl-Madrona also state: “The degree to which the facts about the risks of epidural anesthesia are hidden from women in labor is astonishing”. And I agree. What happened to “informed consent”!

Would you do it now that you have read the “insert”? Would you do it again? What do you think?
Let’s share…

source: Medical Risk of Epidural Anesthesia during Childbirth

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  • 1b - Pain-Free Birth
• Tags:
  • avoiding c-section,
  • epidural,
  • epidural anesthesia,
  • epidural risk,
  • epidural side effect,
  • labor pains,
  • Painfree birth,
  • painless childbirth