If any of you girls are considering having pain relief then what do you want to have? As much as I'd love to brave the all natural somehow i know i just won't do it, I'm awful with pain! All someone has to do is show me a needle and i go as pale as a ghost haha.
I have no idea what kinda pain relief to go for :/!? x

I am going in and seeing how it goes, but not holding out on medication
My hospital use fentenyl(sp?) because it has a fast half-life and will be processed through MY kidneys and not LO's (something I was very worried about) where most opiates, if you arn't in labour long enough, can pass through the placenta.
They will only give it to you at mine if you are over 2 hours away from delivering.

If I can't take it, I'm open to an epidural and they can turn it down so I can tell when to push--I'd rather listen to my body than them.

Dunno if that helps!

My first I did all natural but only because by the time I wanted something I was ready to push so they wouldn't give me anything, just had to bite down on the gas and air tube (actually using it made me sick).

With this one I'll just see how it goes, every labour is different and I'll take it as it comes

I want to use the bath at my hospital at first, then a TENS and gas & air
You don't get epi's here but they can give you an injection of something (can't remember what) but I'd rather not have that sort of thing..

EPI!!!!! And any pain killer they are willing to give me along the way - I don't want to feel ANY of the pain!!!

I hate hate hate needles too, but I know that I won't even be thinking about the pinch from one!

My plan is to go as natural as possible with as little intervention as possible

I had gas and air and diamorphine and managed ok with those

Mee Too xx

I only plan on having gas and air. Definitely NO to and epidural! xx

I'd say go in with an open mind, you may say no to things now, but you'll be most likely to change your mind when in pain, and there's no need to feel 'guilty' cos you didn't do it naturally, you still gav birth and thats what counts. In my opinion, why not have pain relief? It doesn't you a make you a better mother cos you 'suffered', it just about gtting through it in the most comfortable way. Also, I hate needles but I found its the least of your worries in labour

I had a 41 hour labour, and had in order:
- paracetamol (helped with early pains)
Then when I got to hopital:
-co-codamol (found it made me sick but didn't help)

something injected that was called meptid? I think, like a lesser version of pethidine/diamorphine and worked well for several hours but you have an anti-sickness jab too because it often makes people sick (the anti-sickness didn't work for me but most people are sick in labour anywho, so wasn't a major problem)

- Pethidine (worked really well, just felt much lesser pain and more relaxed, enough that I could doze for an hour or so)

- Gas and air (LOVED it, made me feel tipsy, and like I wasn't really aware of the pain and it was the most fun bit of my labour!)

- Epidural (I always said I wouldn't have one, but I was in enough pain that I didn't care, you don't feel it go in, they do it quite quickly, and it worked very well, I couldn't really feel from the waist down but they stopped it 2/3 hours before pushing so I could feel when to push, so didn't effect that stage at all whichwas my concern.)

This time, I don't want so many types of pain relief and the only reason I had them all was the length of my labour and the fact that I was so exhausted after not sleeping for 2 days, but if its the same length this time, there's nothing I wouldn't take this time that I did last time. I hope this helps somehow