Labour Pain Medications
Many women are relived to know there are medical methods for lessening the pain of labor. But before you make a decision to use an anesthetic, you should know about the procedure and side effects of your options.
The most common labor medication is the epidural. This is a local anesthetic applied directly to the spinal cord with the help of a catheter.
It can provide total pain relief, but it takes a long time to administer. It can also cause allergic reactions, drops in blood pressure, and a drop in baby's heart rate, and other side effects. A spinal block can be faster, but it has more side effects.
Pudendal blocks and local infiltration anesthetics can also cause a drop in blood pressure, but overall they have fewer side effects. However these methods only provide pain relief to the vaginal area and they don't give you any relief from uterine contractions.
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