You may feel you want a completely natural labor and delivery, only to find that your labor is extremely long, you need medication to strengthen your contractions, and you need pain relief. Don t view this as a failure. On the other hand, you may think you want an epidural but find upon getting to the hospital that you re not a good candidate for it or don t require it. The former, usually narcotics, is safe for the baby, takes effect very quickly, and allows you to still experience part of labor since it dulls rather than takes away the pain completely. The most popular and effective form of anesthesia is epidural analgesia.
Epidurals are more complicated than intravenous medication.
They must be administered by an anesthesiologist or other specially trained individual. Epidurals aren t appropriate for women with certain conditions, and once administered, they start slowly and take several minutes to begin working. However, they offer excellent pain relief and are particularly useful in a long labor. For a short, hard labor, an epidural is not necessarily the best choice. For example, a patient who conceives her first baby at 40 after infertility treatment is certainly high risk.