Question about natural delivery

Platinumvague

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2011
Messages
1,202
Reaction score
0
I was induced with DD and ended up getting an epidural.I'd rather not have one this time around.My question is,does the pain from a natural birth stress baby out? It makes sense to me.I would think the mother being in pain would stress little one.I have no idea of thats possible but it's something I've been thinking about.
 
I don't think so. I understand where you are coming from but I think it's fine. Here in UK the epidural rate is around 30% I think but the other 70% of babies are not affected by mums being in pain. X
 
Nope, it's what's meant to happen. Obviously, we wouldn't have survived as a species if birth was dangerous without drugs. It doesn't make evolutionary sense (and anyway, most women still have a natural birth even today).

Induction and pain relief drugs can sometimes cause problems for babies (sharp increases or decreases in heart rate) and also for you (blood pressure issues) which can affect baby. So avoiding them and having natural birth is probably the safest thing you can do, assuming you and baby are otherwise healthy (meaning induction isn't necessary because of a pregnancy complication)

The baby doesn't feel the pain. It just helps them to move down easily in the birth canal. There's this myth out there that epidurals help women relax which is better for baby, but it's just that, a myth. All the clinical research we have points to it being the opposite in most cases. Babies born to mums who had natural births tend to be healthier and have less complications immediately after birth. Actually, an epidural means you're more likely to need an instrumental delivery (forceps or ventouse), which can be really stressful for babies (not to mention, sometimes causes birth injuries). So nope, if you want to have a natural birth (and it's great and totally doable!), your baby will be fine. :thumbup:
 
Thank you for the replies,hopefully I can do it this time.I asked everyone but my husband to stay home ao I can focus.I will look into hypnobirthing.I heard it works really well.
 
No, baby actually gets more affected by the pain relief we use rather than the actual pain we experience, if our primary concern was for the baby only with no regards to the mother at all it would be best for all babies to be born naturally with no pain relief in a straight forward labour (obviously it's not as black and white as that!!!)
 
(But don't feel guilty for having pain relief, see how you go :flower:)
 
I listened to the natal hypnotherapy cd. I am not sure if it worked as I didn't recall anything from the cd. I did take into account what was said in the accompanying book. How fear can bring on your adrenaline and slow things down and lead to assisted deliveries. Just go with it!!
 
No baby isn't affected by your pain.

With an epidural your baby is still feeling contractions , and they often give you pitocin which makes contractions harder on baby , and drugs like morphine and other narcotics effect them more .

Natural labour is what your body and baby are ment to do
 
It depends on the woman. Not all women labor the same and no one has the same pain management/threshold as another woman. So while labor may not have been excruciating for some and they progressed just fine, another woman may have a horrible time with it and labor comes to a halt and baby gets stressed out. There have been lots of women (read the birth announcements) that say they were finally able to progress and/or baby became less stressed after an epidural.

Don't be too hard on yourself if you need pain medication. :hugs:
 
It depends on the woman. Not all women labor the same and no one has the same pain management/threshold as another woman. So while labor may not have been excruciating for some and they progressed just fine, another woman may have a horrible time with it and labor comes to a halt and baby gets stressed out. There have been lots of women (read the birth announcements) that say they were finally able to progress and/or baby became less stressed after an epidural.

Don't be too hard on yourself if you need pain medication. :hugs:

There will be even more cases of women needing their labours to be assisted with forceps or ventouse or even c sections because babies can become stressed during epidurals because the birthing process is slowed down. In the UK only 25% of women go on to have an unassisted labour after having an epidural, so while I totally agree with you no one should be hard on themselves if they need pain medication and if I needed one I would absolutely take an epi, there are risks with it and I don't think you'll find many medical professionals offering epidurals because a baby is stressed unless it is because intervention is going to be needed thus an epidural to aneathesise, epidurals are only for the mum, not the baby, babies are born more easily in straight forward labours naturally, if babies were affected by the mother's pain in labour there wouldn't natural labours at all anymore, or arguably even people on the planet, we are designed this way. (But as I say that doesn't mean the mum should be ignored and should absolutely have one if needed but I don't agree with the context of your post in that it is used to help baby, in the most respectful way :flower:)
 
No worries, its nice to see that people can disagree respectfully. :)

I may have worded my response wrong - I didn't mean that epidurals can be used to directly help a baby. I meant that epidurals can help a mom relax and progress. Some women don't take the stress of labor well, and if mom is doing poorly - no body wins. :(
 
No it does not affect the baby. I was in natural labor for 45 hours and my baby showed zero signs of stress during labor and was born with a perfect apgar score.
 
No it does not affect the baby. I was in natural labor for 45 hours and my baby showed zero signs of stress during labor and was born with a perfect apgar score.
 
I think the purpose of an epidural is when mum is stressed out and panicking from the pain her heart rate and blood pressure will elevate there for the baby will start to distress and the epidural takes the pain for mum therefore allowing her to calm and vitals to go back to normal so baby can. On numerous occasions I have seen that the epidural has in fact slowed the labor down but if mum is not coping then I don't see the harm yes we were designed to do this and I am all for natural birth as I had one myself but a lot of women and babies died without the amazing interventions we have today. I say try hypnobirthing and keeping in control they were my biggest tools. Also finding someone who can be an amazing support during your labor to really get involved in the hypno/relaxing birth. My husband bless him didn't know what the hell to do but my sister and I had discussed what techniques I wanted to use and to be honest I would have wanted an epidural if she wasn't there if I ever started to slip with focus she would snap me right back into my zone where I needed to be. Your mind is a very very powerful thing and when you start losing control is when the pain becomes worse well it was for me anyway. In saying that I only labored for a total of 6hrs with the hospital putting me down as 3hrs because that's when I hit 4cm so technically that was labor at my hospital so I have no idea if I had of been going for another 6 hrs if I could have done it but I would like to think so. If you didn't like having the epidural last time use that as your motivation you know every time you feel like you want to give up think of how you are feeling now in your calm state and bring that into your labor. Lol I sound like such a kook but it all works relaxation music calm breathing and thinking and an amazing support person. Good luck and I hope that no matter what choice you make you are happy with that decision if you even doubt anything for a second don't do it give it another hour and ask yourself again, set little goals you will get through it xx
 
no baby doesn't get stressed because of labour pain. If babies were to get stressed for that our species would not survive.

Now like others have said the epi is there to help if pain is absolutely un-managebale for the mother. Now I had a natural birth but my labour was only 4 hours; if it had been like 20 hours or something like that I woulda for sure had an epi :D Though you should keep in mind that epi quite often makes the labour longer and increase the rate of EMC. I'm thinking my labour was as short as it was coz I went natural.
 
The baby gets stressed either way, labour is physically intense for both the pusher and the one being pushed out.
 
My gynaecologist who one of the few supporters of natural birth here says two things:

1) Pain is very important to help the mother who is able to move in labour get into the best positions for herself and baby as she will naturally seek to reduce the pain by moving into positions which open the top or bottom of the pelvis each at the appropriate time.
2) Out of control pain for a long time which causes hyper or hypoventilation can be dangerous for the baby and in those cases when the mother can't be calmed back down it is safer to use pain relief

I'm in the same position, due to complications last time I had an epidural so haven't been through full labour naturally but after my pain management class where this was discussed I feel happier about the labour and about "caving in" and asking for an epidural if necessary.

I hope this helps!
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
1,650,189
Messages
27,141,091
Members
255,672
Latest member
mummynugs
Back
Top
monitoring_string = "c48fb0faa520c8dfff8c4deab485d3d2"