What pain relief did you have in labour?

Saw this post on my birth board on bc and thought it was interesting. I found labour not as painful as I had expected and was doing well without anything for about 26hrs But lil went into distress and I was not doing well (had high temperatures) and so I was told that I had to have an epidural and an emerg c-section. I wasn't too pleased about this so my midwife (fantastic lady that she was ) asked the doctors if I could give pushing her out a quick go once I had the epidural. And I did! It was a fantastic feeling to know that I could do it on my own without having surgery, yay

Sam...

I had no pain relief with Phebie and I loved it!! My contractions started at 5.15am and I gave birth at 5.07pm. I'll be doing the same for tis one too.
With Hannah I had gas & air but that was mainly because I had no idea what was going on and I was scared silly!

[clothmama]

I had nothing at all with Louis, it was all a bit quick in the end I nearly had him on the floor they just got me to the delivery room in the nick of time!!!

With Josh I had an epidural.

Would do it again with nothing!

I had to be induced with Matthew. Started with gas and air but it didn't agree with me at all - felt like I was dying and having out of body experiences! Scary stuff Had an epidural about 5 hours before he was actually born and it really was fantastic. I was hestitant beforehand but very glad I had it, worked well for me with no side effects.

Joanne

hmmm not option for 'all of the above'!!!

I had everything with my son then ended up having am emergency section!!!

With the twins I went straight for the spinal due to having a planned section as 1 of them was transverse!

jan x

Well it's complicated as Isabelle decided to start coming early...

I was doing fine on my own until they decided to "speed things up" with a sytocin(I think!) drip...
(Still don't remember why they did that... - must get my notes...)
At which point I went rapidly thru from just paracetamol (hahahahah!) to gas & air (bizare stuff...) and then pethidine (wish I'd NEVER had it... Never really wanted it either...)

Only to end up with a spinal block and emergency section as she was distressed and I hadn't progressed far enough to push...

Oh well... best laid plans of mice and men and all that!

I think the induction (or speedup!) drugs make the contractions a lot more painful from speaking to other ppl on this...

Next time will be a much more serene and natural process if baby lets me!!!

Well, I had just gas & air until about 23 hours in and then decided I couldn't do it any longer and that I NEEDED an epidural. I had decided beforehand that I wanted to avoid it if possible and it took me a long time to finally decide that I wanted one, but felt an incredible sense of relief when the doc examined me and decided I could have one. Only for the doc to come back a few minutes later to tell me that there was no anaethetist available and I couldn't have one afterall. I fell apart a bit then to be honest because I had made the decision to have it and didn't think I could go on.

But the doc eventually worked out that Charlotte'e head was turned completely the wrong way and when she turned her head things moved along much more quickly and she popped out after another 5 hours!. So actually I am glad I didn't have the epidural as who knows what would have happened but it was distressing at the time.

The ironic thing is that I had a 3rd degree tear and therefore had to wait for the anaesthetist once more so that I could go to theatre to be sewn up and then had a full spinal anaesthetic in the end anyway and couldn't walk for hours

Just gas and air with Jake (and that was with an episiotomy and forceps!!)

and then with Erin the gas and air didn't arrive at my homebirth til I was about 8cms so only had a bit to get me through those last cms! the best birth experience ever, i actually really enjoyed the whole thing, amazing

Next time I will do the same, I'll try go without it at all but will defo have it there just incase!

I had gas and air for a while but like Steph they kept cranking up that drip (3 day labour) to get things going faster so I had pethidine. I was asking for an epidural near to the end (not knowing it was) which shocked me as I've always said I would never have one. Think I'd like to learn to hypnobirth myself if I do have another beanie.

Ericax