Comfort Measures and Epidurals
Why using various comfort measures for labor and getting an epidural are not mutually exclusive.
Epidurals typically do not remove all of the mother's pain. There also may a delay in getting medication. Other comfort measures are needed to fill in the gap.
Why are epidurals not enough?
An anesthesiologist shared with me that the majority of mothers he was treating had no back-up plan other than getting an epidural for pain relief. Epidurals have become so effective at reducing pain that more and mothers believed that nothing else was needed.
However, there are several reasons why every mother should learn as many pain relief techniques as possible. Here are just a few:
- Epidural anesthesia typically does not remove all pain. It is common to have residual pressure, back discomfort or other pain during labor even with an epidural on board. Contrary to popular opinion, epidurals have a success rate of approximately 80%. This means that 20% of women do not have significant pain relief after getting an epidural. For both of those reasons, it is crucial that mothers have other comfort measures to utilize in conjunction with an epidural
- Labor can happen more quickly than expected. With all of the necessary pre-anesthesia procedures such as IV fluid and blood work, there simply may not be adequate time to get an epidural if labor is fast. All mothers should have additional comfort measures to fall back on just in case labor is progressing quickly.
- There may be a delay in getting epidural anesthesia due to the needs of the hospital staff. At times, mothers may need to wait several hours if the anesthesiologist is helping other patients, for example. This is an ideal time for the mother to utilize comfort measures.
- More information about comfort measures can be found in the following recommended pregnancy books as well as your childbirth class or with assistance from your doula.
- Have you thought about using other measures for comfort along with an epidural? If you had your baby, which ones worked the best for you? Let us know.
- (For information about using epidural anesthesia, read Epidural Anesthesia for Birth and Do Epidurals affect Babies?.)
- (Many thanks to Jennifer Vanderlaan from www.birthingnaturally.net for the use of this image.)
The copyright of the article Comfort Measures and Epidurals in Pregnancy & Childbirth is owned by Brenda Lane. Permission to republish Comfort Measures and Epidurals must be granted by the author in writing.
