In the past, women did not have much choice but to find the way to deal with the pain on their own. Nowadays, there are various pain relief methods. The four of them fall into main one: gas and air, pethidine, epidurals and TENS machine. In this article we will try to give explanation about each one.
The method of inhaling gas and air is the one which is most commonly used. Every delivery room is equipped with it and, if someone is having a baby at home, it can be brought there. It is good for the first stage of labor. It is given through a mask, and the good thing about it is that you can control the amount of inhaled gas and air. Not more than 20 seconds is needed for the gas to enter in the blood system and ease the pain. It isn’t so strong to remove your pain completely, but it will numb the pain in about one minute. Another good quality is that oxygen benefits your newborn.
Another method is the use of pethidine. It is a drug which is similar to morphine. It is given in thigh or in bottom in the form of an injection, and the effect of it lasts from three to four hours. Standard dose is 100 mg, but there is a possibility of using the smaller dose, especially if a woman is small, or if she is taking some other medications. It can not be given a few hours before the labor starts. The reason for that is the fact that it can affect the baby. The best time for pethidine is during the first stage of labor. Pethidine has downsides; it can have influence the baby’s breathing. Women who got pethidine may become sleepy, drowsy and it can make them feel like crying. Because of this, some hospitals use diamorphine and meptid. The main cause for this is that these drugs don’t effect baby’s breathing.
There are three types of epidural: traditional epidural, mobile epidural and spinal block. Anesthesiologist gives the epidural and later on, midwives give more of it, if necessary. The place for administering epidural in traditional way is the lower back, where the caterer is inserted. The anesthetic is syringed through it. Mobile epidural is slightly different from traditional. The catheter is connected to a pump which regulates the doses of anesthetic in intervals. It is better than the traditional one, because it doesn’t totally block and numb the nerves of your abdomen and you don’t have to lie in bed. Mobile epidural can have effect from 2 to 4 hours. Spinal block presents one dose of local anesthetic. After the spinal block, one doesn’t feel anything from waist bellow. It is good for emergency situations, like urgent need for caesarean. The duration of spinal block is up to two hours. TENS is a small machine that produces small electrical pulses. It can be used in all cases, except the in a case of the childbirth in water.
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