I have a question about labor pain.
When I was about to give birth, they decided I wasn’t coming along fast enough and gave me some medicine (I forget the name of it) that induces you.
It was quite painful, as I waited 2 hours for the spinal.
I have heard say that if you don’t use this stuff or get induced, it is much easier.
Obviously, you mommies would know.
So please fill me in.
I’m not a mommy, but my #2 child is due in three weeks.
The stuff they give you to begin labor (or speed it up) is pitocin, a synthetic form of oxytocin, which is what your body uses for the same purpose.
I’m not sure about your other questions - instead of a spinal block, they usually use an epidural anesthetic nowadays. It goes into your dura, which is the sheath around your brain/spine, but it’s not as drastic as a block.
When my #1 was born, pitocin was used because it was already taking too long (19 hours), and there was mercurium sp?) in the amniotic fluid, which is dangerous to the baby because an infection can result if the baby gets it in his lungs. Pitocin certainly made that birth easier (faster).
“Easier” is a relative term, sweetie. The only women I ever heard of who would say that they had an “easy” birth were the ones where the baby basically popped out while they were still in the taxi on the way to the hospital.
Yes, pitocin does tend to give you a hard and fast labor, but like I said, it’s all relative. Everyone experiences “discomfort” differently. Why do you want to know? Are you expecting to need this information in the near future? Just curious.
P.S. What Curt’s baby had was “meconium” in the amniotic fluid. This means that the baby was under too much stress due to the labor, so it pooped out a tiny bit into the amniotic fluid. And yes, if you get poop in your lungs, it’s bad news, no matter how old you are. So that would have been why they wanted to speed up the labor.
P.P.S. There’s a good reason why they call it “labor” in the first place. If it were all fun and games, they’d call it a “picnic”. “Quick, Harry, call the doctor! I think my picnic is starting!”
Guy to traffic cop who pulled him over for speeding: “Officer, you don’t understand–my wife’s having a picnic in the back seat…”
Woman to friends: “I was on a picnic for 19 hours straight! Then it wasn’t progressing fast enough, so they gave me some pitocin…”
My wife was induced with our first (her water had broke). The pain came from the contractions before dilation was complete, I believe, not directly from the pitocin. Presumably, pitocin is only given when there is a reason to speed things up, and you can see where speeding things up might be more painful. It was easier with the next two, which weren’t induced.
Oxytocin is used by dairy farmers some as well but usually after the birth as a way to provoke placenta to pass. After an especially hard birth retained placenta tends to be a common problem. It also helps with milk letdown which can become a problem since when you give oxytocin after the birth it does not always match up with the time you want her to milk and it will usually mess up her milk letdown cycle for a few days. Thus we don’t like to use it unless we’re concerned about retained placenta, which can result in infection etc. Probably much more than you wanted to know about the common drugs used by doctors and vets huh ?
Sorry, its been awhile and I forgot, I did have an epidural.
I wonder if there are any women who didn’t have ANY pain at all?
I had to be induced both times. I wouldn’t know how it is without it. The first time the dr. talked me into the epidural immediately which then caused complications of low blood pressure but not low enough for them to give me medicine, just low enough for the blood pressure alarm to go off every 5 minutes. Thanks doc, that epidural really helped me rest. On top of that my legs were completely numb while I could still feel the contractions partially. The next time I waited as long as I could stand it and the epidural worked much better and there were no complications except baby’s low blood sugar which wouldn’t have been avoided. Why wait? Because after the first problems with the epidural I read and read and read and the best I could come up with is the longer that a woman waits into labor the less complications she gets from the epidural. Of course there’s no guarantees, but the statistics seemed to point that way.
The WORST part of being induced (for me) is that they put the internal monitor on and then won’t let you get out of bed. I would have been more comfortable standing and walking part of the time. I was so close to completely dialated when I asked for the epidural I think I could have made it if I could have walked a little. Anyway, my insurance paid for epidurals so I’m not upset. The second one worked great.
Yes, it’s pitocin and from what I’ve heard, it does cause harder and quicker labor.
As SoHoMom said, you’re better off being able to stand up and walk around and letting gravity do it’s job, rather than have an internal monitor (ok, sometimes you NEED that), or getting an epidural right away. With an epidural, you have to lie flat, so it’s harder for the baby to move down.
I have so many friends who get an epidural immediately upon arriving at the hospital, but they would be better off upright and walking around. Just my opinion…
I wonder if there are any women who didn’t have ANY pain at all?
Well, I have talked to a couple women who have experienced birth as nearly painless, (hard work, certainly, but not actual pain) but I think they are in a small minority. I experienced my births as a great deal of hard work-muscles straining to their limits, intense concentration-but very little actual pain. My first birth was fairly textbook-12 1/2 hours, with 3 hours of pushing. The other three were much faster, once things got going, and the pushing stages were very short. That, combined with big babies (9 1/2 lbs each) made pushing uncomfortable-lots of burning. I actually felt myself tear with the second. But I had no pain meds. I was able to control my reactions using relaxation techniques, so that only the muscles that had to be working were tense, which had a lot to do with the amount of pain and stress I felt.
Oxytocin is used by dairy farmers some as well but usually after the birth as a way to provoke placenta to pass.
It is also used after births (with humans) to slow down heavy bleeding. I had an oxytocin drip after my first because I was bleeding “a little heavier than they liked to see.” After my fourth, (when I had, unbenknownst to us at the time, retained a piece of placenta) I had it in a drip and as an intramuscular injection because I was bleeding very heavily.
IMHO, I’m not really sure who decided things aren’t going “fast enough”. Sounds like a newer thing. Unless the baby is in distress, I don’t know why they even would do such a thing unless they just don’t want to wait around. When my kids were born, they didn’t give epidurals. I never even heard of them until later. When I asked for pain meds, they said “it would drug the baby”. (70’s) Like, who cares? The baby is going to be sleepy for a few hours. Just get me OUT OF THIS PAIN!! Women had to suffer for thousands of years and now that there was something they wouldn’t even let us have it. I bet it has to do with original sin.
About things going “fast enough”: these days most women are hooked up to an ultrasound, at least intermitently, during labor. The doctor/midwife can track the heartbeat with somewhat more accuracy than a stethescope and determine that the child about to be born is in distress. In general use, the machines can be used to keep an eye on how the baby is doing. In the wrong hands, and with an inexperienced doctor, a woman can be determined to be in distress simply because she doesn’t follow the expected pattern. It is an ongoing struggle between technology and art, which pretty much describes the process of attending birth.
Up until time to push, I experienced “mild discomfort”. All I wanted to do was pace around, which I did, and then sit in the jacuzzi until it was time to get busy pushing.
Pushing sucked. If you’ve made it to pushing without medication, they won’t give it to you at that time because it can slow down the contractions and hinder the urge to push. Because I hadn’t been medicated it was at this point that I tried to bite Jett, who happened to be my birth coach.
I had a tylenol later on, after all the endorphins generated from actual delivery had worn off. Then I went to the grocery store 4 hours later and picked some stuff up, then I went home. M. was born in a freestanding birth center. We were released as quickly as a pediatrician could check out her vitals and give the OK. If it were another era, I’d have been one of those women who takes a few minutes off from working in the field, delivers, and goes back to work.
Total labor from first contraction to delivery = 8 hours.
I am very fortunate.
Good breeding stock.
I guess it’s my turn.
I had my first, and only baby 29 months ago. Yes, I took the pitocin challenge. It seemed so sensible—come in and have your baby when you want. Mind you, he was ready, I just picked the day of the week.
Well, I went into the hospital, they shot me up, hooked me to the ultrasound, punctured my bag, and walked away. It took about 40 minutes for the pitocin to kick in. Then I started to get the worst cramps I could imagine. All I wanted to do was PUSH!
My husband, bless him, was screaming into the IC, “Get a doctor in here!”
After about 20 minutes of this, the resident doctor showed up. He took one look at me, put my legs in the stirrups, threw a gown over my knees, and said, “OK, pu…” – and he was holding my baby boy in his hands.
I didn’t even have an epiesiotomy.
After Mike left with our son, to have him banded, weighed, footprinted, etc., the doc put ONE stitch in me because he said “Looks like you’ve got a few skidmarks in there.”
Yes, I had a lot of pain, but most of it was from holding back the contractions while waiting for the doctor. I wish I could have delivered our baby into my husband’s waiting hands, instead of some doc going thru his internship.
Keep your head up, Vanilla. You WILL have a fine baby.
Apparently, I can’t edit my own posts. So, Vanilla, please disregard the last line of my previous post. I got carried away.
I should have said, I hope your baby is dong fine.
–Ruth
That’s doing, not dong!
Jeez
I am one of those that’s had four kids without needing pitocin, epidurals, etc. My longest labor was four hours start to finish, and in two cases the doctors didn’t even make it. I have a perfectly flat stomach, no stretch marks, and wore my jeans home from the hospital even with the 8 1/2 pounder. Now before everyone hates me, I should mention that the preceding nine months were sheer hell. I have some sort of hormonal imbalance that makes pregnancy an exercise in insanity. Crying for no reason, paranoia, panic attacks. I’ve never been able to take birth control pills for the same reason. (Probably why I have four of them)
single files: I don’t hate you, if that helps. 
First kid: Couldn’t get to sleep. Thought I had diarrhea. Called emergency OB line at 4:30am. Doctor told me to come into the office at 9 the next morning and he’d check me out. Called again at 5:30, because my system was cleaned out but I still felt like I had to go. He said, "Ok…come on in to the emergency room. If it’s diarrhea, we’ll take care of it. If it’s not, we’ll go from there. Got to hospital at about 6am. The hook me up to all of the monitors; still cramping, but nothing is showing up as contractions. I’m dilated about 1/2 cm…which can last for WEEKS. Still cramping occasionally. 9:00 rolls around. Still cramping occasionally. STILL nothing showing up on monitors. STILL dilated 1/2 cm. 9:30 rolls around. Still cramping occasionally. STILL nothing showing up on monitors. I’m dilated 5 cm. Uhm. 9:45. Still nothing on monitors. Still dilated 5 cm. 10:00. Suddenly dilated 8 cm. STILL not showing up on monitors as having contractions. Express my opinion that monitors are WRONG. They turn me on my side to prep for an epidural and call my OB. OB gets in 5 minutes later. OB rushes out. They turn me on my back again. I ask, “What about the epidural?” Sweet nurse says, “Honey, by the time it would take effect you’re gonna have this baby.” I say, “Oh.” Doc runs through room with scrubs in hand. 5 more minutes. Doc run back in, in scrubs, in time to watch the baby crown from across the room. Runs over, I push four times, WHAM, “Hiya, son!!”
Second baby was induced. They gave me pitocin at 4:30. No sweat. I really didn’t feel much of anything. A bit of MILD cramping, but that’s it. At 10:00pm they broke my water. 20 minutes later…AGONY. It turns out that before they break your water you can’t really feel contractions, because the amniotic fluid cushions your system as well as the baby…but once they break the water there’s no CUSHIONING any more. Fortunately I am a brood mare, and 2nd kid was born 2 hours and 3 minutes later…which made it 12:03 am on the day after she was due. I think she just wanted to prove we couldn’t MAKE her do anything, because she’s followed THAT line for the last 2 1/2 years.
Third kid. Was DAMEND tired of being pregnant. Fair warning: nipple stimulation works like a DREAM at inducing labor. I lay idly in bed watching CNN Headline News and flicking at 'em, hoping it might do some good. Long story short: Lay in hospital pretty much just channel surfing from 3:00am to 9:00am, when suddenly my body went, “IT’S TIME”…and what with nurses running around and the doc being with another patient, the baby’s HEAD WAS OUT as she ran in the room. She pretty much had time to catch him.
Three easy labors…three healthy kids…one woman with huge stretch marks and a hip spread from hell. Totally worth it, too.
Someone is going to tear off my fingers if I don’t quit it with the long-winded posts.
So, in short: induced labor was slightly harder for me, but ONLY because the last two hours were a marked contrast to the preceding six; I went from no pain at all to LABOR.
I had a midwife when my daughter was born, and it went so well that I don’t think I’ll ever consult a doctor on pregnancy! I had no pain drugs, no inducing drugs… NOTHING. I wanted to do it the natural way.
To prevent tearing, she used warm compresses. I don’t know why they don’t do that in hospital, it sure beats stitches! Anyway, I woke up in labour at about 6am, went to the midwife centre at about 8am, walked around a great deal, started pushing at about 9:30, and my daughter was born at 11am! As for pain, I wouldn’t call it PAIN. To me, pain implies that something is wrong with your body. I felt EXTREME DISCOMFORT and irritability.
Out of curiosity what is the protocol in these situations if a birth starts going seriously wrong and the complications are beyond the capacity of the midwife center to treat. Does the Doctor come to you? Do you get transferred to the doctor. What happens?
Also, why so anti-doctor consultation? I thought pregnancy was one of the most (relatively) dangerous things a woman could go through. I’m sure most midwives are good at what they do, but I would imagine (perhaps incorrectly), that a competent obstetricians range of knowledge re pregnancy problems and solutions would be considerably larger than a good midwives. Is this “danger” of pregnancy over hyped by the doctor shows on TV and the media?