As a friend's due date approached, she confided in me that the thought of going into labor was terrifying. It was her first pregnancy and we debated at length the pros and cons of having an epidural for pain management. Her main concern, like others, was that the common method of pain relief could prolong labor. Recent findings have shown that an epidural can lengthen the second-stage of labor for more than two hours.
In the end, she decided her birth plan needed to be flexible and include the option of an epidural, regardless of how it may impact the length of her labor. New research shows many would agree. Brendan Carvalho, MBBCh, chief of obstetric anesthesia at Stanford and lead author of the study, told Reuters that "Interestingly, intensity is the driver" behind women's labor preferences.
More from the article:
For the study, Carvalho and his colleagues gave a seven-item questionnaire to expectant mothers who had arrived at the hospital to have labor induced but were not yet having painful contractions. The women took the survey a second time within 24 hours of giving birth.
The questionnaire pitted hypothetical pain level, on a scale of zero to 10, against hours of labor.
A sample question asked, “Would you rather have pain intensity at two out of 10 for nine hours or six out of 10 for three hours?”
Both pre- and post-labor, women on average preferred less intense pain over a longer duration, according to results published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.
Previously: From womb to world: Stanford Medicine Magazine explores new work on having a baby
Photo by Mamma Loves
