The Tweedles

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Epidurals or "You want to screw what into my baby's head?"

In our Bradley class today we talked about epidurals.
I was really impressed with our instructor who is very pro natural birth to condone epidurals. She explained to us that they are tools and that they can be helpful. I can understand this, and I know of some people that used them at the perfect time resulting in a great birth, perhaps if they wouldn't have used them, then they would have had a c-section. That being said I do not want one. I've always known that I don't want one, but after seeing the internal monitor that gets screwed into the scalp of your baby when you have one, pretty much sealed the no epidural deal for me.
To be clear I don't want to screw anything into my baby's scalp.

(Okay, I know it's just a little needle, and I know that hundreds of them are used a day, but what fun would it be if I didn't pull out all of the drama, because really when I looked at the little needle, it was a full sized wood screw, waiting to bore into the skull of my baby. No I'm not hormonal at all....)

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3 Comments:

At 11/26/2007 8:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I may be wrong, but I didn't think that getting an epidural always required having an internal monitor. That said, I'm not planning on an epidural either, unless I'm really starting to run out of options. We're also taking Bradley classes, and for the most part, I really like them.

The "screw in the baby's head" is only one of the things I don't like about the internal monitor. The other thing is that they have to rupture your membranes to get it in. I'm loading up like crazy on vitamin C, so I hope my membranes don't rupture at all, and I'm certainly not letting anyone break them.

 
At 11/26/2007 12:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have exactly the same feeling! Down to the exaggerated vision of it...just sounds unbelievably horrible. BLEAH.

 
At 11/26/2007 12:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had the perfect epidural. Seriously... it was low dose, so it controlled the contraction pain but I could still feel to push and I could still move my legs a little.

That said, I wouldn't do it again if I didn't have to. It was a choice I made based on fear rather than anything else. Now that I have given birth I can see that epidurals definitely have their place, but I would not assume that I was going to get one right off the bat. I think natural birth is much better overall for both the baby and the mother.

They did do an internal monitor with the Moosh, but it wasn't a big deal. In fact, for an experience that I was sure was going to be horrendous, I can sum up my birth experience thusly: it really was not a big deal. Not scary, not that painful, etc. Nothing to worry about.

All my good vibes are vibing your way Dea!

 

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