You can influence pain at three sites: where it's produced in the first place, at the gate in the spinal cord, and in the brain where the pain is perceived. In working out your own techniques for pain management, you will want to employ pain-relief measures that can control pain at all three of these sites.
To do this, you can practice relaxation techniques to keep your muscles from getting tired and tense. And you can use efficient positions for labors that keep your muscles working in the way they were designed to. Next, you can close the gate in the spinal cord so the cars can't get through. A pleasant touch stimulus, such as massage, sends positive impulses that can block the transmission of pain impulses through the spinal cord. You can also cause gridlock at the gate by sending through a lot of competing vehicles, such as impulses from music, specific mental imagery, or counterpressure.
Finally, you can fill up the receptor sites in the brain so that the pain-cars have no place to park. Blocking access to this third pain-perception site is how pain-relieving drugs work. You can achieve the same effect naturally by manufacturing your body's own painkillers, endorphins.
Take responsibility for your birth decisions. While a painless childbirth is as rare as a sleep-through-the-night newborn, most pain in childbirth is under your influence — if you are ready for it.
Be aware of the options available for medical pain relief, such as drugs and epidural anesthesia.
Complete pain-relief without risk is a promise no doctor can deliver. While today's analgesics and anesthetics are better and safer than ever, there is no such thing as a perfect pain-reliever — one that works, yet is perfectly safe for mother and baby. By understanding what obstetrical drugs are available, what benefits and risks they carry, and how to use them wisely, you will best be able to decide which, if any of them, you want to use.
If only there were a perfect analgesic (meaning painkiller) that would act on only the pain pathways in mother and didn't cross over the placenta to baby. Unfortunately, there is no such panacea. When narcotics relieve mother's body of pain, they also affect baby. An additional concern about narcotics is their effect on the mind, impairing the ability to focus. When combined with natural pain relievers, however, properly used medical pain relievers can get a laboring woman back on track by providing temporary relief, which allows her to rest and recharge. Here is what every mother-to-be should know about choosing and using narcotic pain relievers.
The epidural has made most other methods of pain relief obsolete — and has even done away with the belief that you must experience pain to birth a baby. Yet before you grab for this magic medicine, inform yourself about its benefits and risks.
This is the point where most women sing the praises of the epidural, yet this is also the instant at which a woman becomes more of a patient than a participant. Yes, once the pain is relieved you can rest and recoup your energy. But because the lower half of your body can't move, you will need assistance changing positions. Since the sensation to empty your bladder is impaired, a nurse will insert a urinary catheter to take away urine. Because of the possibility of the epidural lowering your blood pressure, the nurse will monitor your blood pressure every two to five minute until it is stable, and then every fifteen minutes. To keep the pain relief even on both sides of your body, the nurse will turn you from side to side. To be sure baby is handling the epidural well, you will be hooked up to an electronic fetal monitor. You will also notice that the doctor or nurse periodically rubs the skin of your abdomen, checking to be sure the drug is giving you sufficient pain relief, but not ascending high enough to interfere with your breathing. Now comes the juggling act of getting you just enough anesthetic to give you pain relief and help you manage your labor, but not so much that it interferes with your labor.
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