Each person’s tolerance for pain is different, and the length of the labor process also varies greatly with the number of children born, the size of the fetus, pelvic and cervical conditions, etc. In different stages of labor, the degree of uterine contraction pain is also different.
Labor analgesia can minimize the pain experienced during natural labor. Labor analgesia can be divided into drug analgesia and natural analgesia according to whether drugs are used or not.
Is what a drug analgesic?
As the name implies, drug analgesia is to relieve pain with drugs, including intravenous anesthesia, nitrous oxide inhalation, regional anesthesia and other methods. I will talk about their respective advantages and disadvantages respectively.
1. Intravenous administration
Intravenous anesthesia drugs take effect quickly, but the duration is not long, often an hour or so. After injection, people often have dizziness, lethargy, nausea and other side effects. Because drugs directly enter the blood, will enter the baby’s body through the placenta, this analgesic method is not commonly used in clinical practice.
2. Nitrous oxide inhalation
The nitrous oxide used for labor analgesia is a mixture of 50% nitrous oxide and 50% oxygen. Nitrous oxide is a fast-acting and fast-metabolizing anesthetic gas, which can have certain analgesic effect.
In some European countries, nitrous oxide analgesia has been used as a non-invasive labor analgesia method for decades. In recent years, our country has also begun to use nitrous oxide as a way of labor analgesia. In the process of use, parturients inhale nitrous oxide to relieve pain in coordination with each uterine contraction, while normal breathing occurs in the uterine contraction space.
Nitrous oxide not only has analgesic function, but also has sedative effect, but its disadvantage is fast metabolism and needs to be inhaled continuously. When inhaling nitrous oxide for a long time, there are often side effects such as dizziness and nausea, and the analgesic effect varies from person to person.
3. Regional anesthesia
Regional anesthesia is divided into intraspinal anesthesia and epidural anesthesia. Epidural anesthesia is the most widely used anesthesia method with the most effective analgesic effect and can be maintained for a long time.
Usually what we call painless childbirth refers to the use of epidural anesthesia during childbirth.
The anesthesiologist places a thin hose in the dural cavity through a guiding needle on the scolius side of the back of the parturient, and then injects the formulated anesthetic drug into the hose. The anesthetic drug takes effect 5-10 minutes after injection.
Narcotic drugs can relieve pain but do not affect pregnant women’s exertion. Formulated narcotic drugs can prevent nerve conduction to pain, but do not affect conduction to motor nerve. That is to say, after anesthesia, uterine contraction pain is greatly relieved or disappeared, but does not affect parturient lower limb movement or exertion in the second stage of labor.
Epidural anesthesia is the safest. Anesthetic drugs play a role in blocking nerve conduction outside the dural. Although they can be absorbed by blood, they need a long time and the absorption amount is very small, so they are recognized as the safest kind of drug analgesia.
The disadvantage of epidural anesthesia is that it may reduce uterine contraction and prolong labor. Therefore, although anesthesia can be used at any stage in theory, most doctors would recommend using epidural anesthesia when labor enters the active stage to reduce the influence of anesthesia on labor duration.
Of course, epidural anesthesia also has a few side effects, such as temporary drop of blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, fever, etc.
Is what a natural analgesic?
There are many methods of natural analgesia. The so-called [natural analgesia] refers to the use of non-drug methods to distract attention and relieve pain, including breathing, massage, hydrotherapy, self-hypnosis, electrical stimulation massage, etc.
When applying various natural analgesic methods, it is very important to allow the parturient to freely change her body position. Being bound to the maternity bed during delivery often increases the anxiety degree of the parturient and reduces the endurance to pain.
Natural analgesia is suitable for all stages of labor, especially during the incubation period of the first stage of labor.
1. Breathing
Different respiratory rhythms are used to relieve pain during contractions and contractions, and the currently popular Ramaze respiratory pain relief delivery method is one of them.
2. Massage
Let the accompanying family massage the back moderately when the uterine contraction pain occurs. It can relieve the waist and back pain caused by the compression of the fetal head, which also reduces the [burden] of the mother to a certain extent.
The participation of family members, especially Mr. Wang, can give mothers great encouragement and support both psychologically and physically.
3. Hydrotherapy
Soaking in a hot bath during labor is a good spasmolysis and analgesia method. This is also why water delivery has been popular in more than 60 countries for so many years.
It should be noted that hospitals and doctors that need to give birth in water have certain qualifications. The parturient and fetus are all normal and there are no special infectious diseases or complications.
4. Self-hypnosis
This is a non-drug analgesic labor method that is very popular in the western countries advocating natural labor in recent years. It relieves pain by constantly positive hints and self-hypnosis. Self-hypnosis helps relax muscles and open the uterus, and the effect varies from person to person.
This is the first choice for mothers who want to give birth purely naturally.
5. Electrical stimulation massage
Electrical stimulation massage is a pain relief method widely used all over the world and has been used in childbirth.
Pulses emitted from the instrument will be preferentially transmitted to the brain along nerve fibers, thus achieving the purpose of relieving pain. Generally applied at the beginning of labor, it can play a better role in relieving pain.
The choice of analgesic method should be based on multiple factors.
This paper introduces so many labor analgesia methods, and the needs and methods of parturients for labor analgesia should be selected according to factors such as personal pain tolerance, constitution, length of labor, different stages of labor, and analgesia methods that can be provided by labor hospitals.