The first known woman in this country to receive obstetric anesthesia for childbirth was Fanny Appleton Longfellow, the wife of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The mother's request for pain relief during labor is sufficient justification for medical intervention provided that medical and practical considerations are taken into account. Providing the mother with an epidural block versus other pain-relief techniques should reflect patient needs and preferences, practitioner preferences or skills, and available resources. Intravenous medications , when injected into a vein or muscle, will dull but may not completely eliminate labor pains. This method can make the mother and baby sleepy and is used mainly during early labor.
Local anesthesia provides numbness to a small area.
It is often used by the obstetrician to inject pain-relieving medications in the vaginal and rectal areas at the time of delivery. Pain relief begins about 10 to 20 minutes after a small area adjacent to the mother's spine is bathed in anesthetic. Spinal blocks , are anesthetics that are administered into the spinal fluid and take effect quickly. Spinals, or intrathecals, are also used for late stages of labor, vaginal delivery, and c-section delivery. In 1981, general anesthesia was used 41 percent of the time for cesarean deliveries.