The months of weary waiting are coming to an end, the smallest of you is separated from a meeting with a baby. The only thing that darkens the joyful anticipation is the need to go through pain. Even "good" neighbor-girlfriends wind up, they say, pain in childbirth - worse than dental. Do not panic in advance, drawing yourself a terrible picture of a long, painful birth. Firstly, how well you endure the fights, it will be revealed only in the "moment X". How to know, suddenly you will fall into the number of lucky ones giving birth easily and painlessly? And secondly, today there are a lot of methods that help to ease the condition of the woman in labor.
Your own director
First and foremost, it is important to be able to help yourself, this is taught in the preparation for parenting courses. Among the proven natural techniques - yoga and special sets of physical exercises, allowing you to take control of the pelvic muscles at the most crucial moment. In addition, to reduce the pain and speed up the delivery help relaxing massage (you can stroke your tummy, hips, lower back or entrust it to the reliable hands of your husband, mother) and the right breathing during childbirth. Even if from a surprise you forget everything that you were advised by experienced mothers or taught in the courses, carefully listen to the commands of the obstetrician - and you will succeed! It is very important not to get lost in the first bouts: sitting, leaning on the back of the chair, lying on his side or simply shifting from foot to foot - the body itself will tell you in what position it is most comfortable for him to endure attempts. When the contractions are too painful, the caesarean section is indicated, or if there are other medical indications for which Mom does not want to tolerate strong attempts and pain (for example, myopia), drug anesthesia is used.
In a tranquil sleep
The first method of drug analgesia in labor is intravenous or intramuscular anesthesia. Used drugs that have an easy sedative effect on the body, usually narcotic analgesics (Fentanyl, Promedol). In this case, not only the pain threshold is reduced, the mother in child can even fall into a soft sleep for some time. This allows you to relax from labor. However, this method has a significant drawback: the arterial pressure of the mother can "fall" so much that the utero-placental circulation is disturbed, as a result of which the child receives less oxygen. And this is fraught with oxygen starvation (hypoxia) of the fetus. In addition, if the anesthesia was carried out quite late and the effect of the drug did not have time to go to no, the baby is born in a state of mild medical depression. Therefore, recently, a much greater "popularity" among both doctors and among parturients is using a different method - epidural anesthesia (EPA). He gives more chances to give birth to a healthy baby, forgetting about the pain and fear.
What is epidural anesthesia?
Currently, this is the most common method of anesthesia (in many countries, for example, in France, the USA under EPA occurs 70% of births). It is curious that this is the only method of anesthesia, which is approved by the Catholic Church. Epidural anesthesia is carried out according to this scheme. An anesthesiologist performs a puncture of the epidural space (hard shell of the spinal cord) with a special needle at the level of 3-4 vertebrae in the lumbar region. Then, through the needle, the doctor inserts the catheter (the needle is removed), through which the required dose of anesthetic solution is administered. After such a procedure, the "neutralization" of the nerve endings, which lead to the uterus, to some extent occurs. The functions of the muscles of the uterus as a result remain unchanged, and the mother will not feel pain. It is not necessary to confuse epidural anesthesia and epidural analgesia. With epidural anesthesia, a concentrated solution of anesthetic is injected into the space of the spinal cord in small doses. Nerve endings at the level of the lumbar loses sensitivity almost completely, blocked, a woman can not feel contractions, her legs grow numb. A woman gives birth lying on her side or on her back, lifting her torso. The obvious drawback of this method is the relative immobility of the woman in childbirth, her non-participation in the sacrament of childbirth. And psychologically, not every woman can normally transfer such a state. But with epidural analgesia, a weakly concentrated anesthetic is injected in a large volume. Reduction of the pain threshold of bouts occurs exactly as much as a woman is comfortable to be in childbirth. The mother can feel fights, freely walks and takes different positions during labor and childbirth. After a while, the anesthetist adds another dose of anesthetic. The big plus of this method is that the woman feels the process of birth and is able to control it independently.
Attention: complications
Despite widespread use both in the West and in domestic obstetrical practice, epidural anesthesia has a number of complications. Among the unpleasant side effects after the procedure - a slight change in blood pressure in patients, as well as headaches and migraines, which can develop even 2-3 days after the intervention. And in most cases, complications are not related to the skill of the anesthesiologist and the technical side of the procedure itself. Most often, the headache occurs for two reasons:
- in the epidural space drugs are introduced that are not intended for epidural anesthesia. To reduce the overall cost of the procedure use cheap anesthetics with a low degree of purification - but to this case, such savings should not be relevant;
- Poor quality sets are used to conduct EPA. But even microscopic defects in the needle (burrs or even scraps of metal that can be examined under a microscope) can injure the brain. When the needle is removed, part of the contents of the spinal canal (cerebrospinal fluid) flows, resulting in a change in the pressure in it. This cause of complications was eliminated with the appearance of high-quality needles with a pencil sharpening (in the form of a cone), which only pushed the petals of the meninges (then they safely occupy their original place) - as a result, the procedure goes without complications. But the decrease in pressure in mammals with EPA is caused solely by the individual reaction of the body to the anesthetic. As with anesthesia, in rare cases, the epidural can provoke hypoxia of the fetus, so it is very important to monitor the baby's heartbeat in childbirth, not just with a stethoscope, but with a cardiac monitor.If all the voiced moments are thought through and observed, childbirth with EPA will be easy for you , and you can give birth to a healthy baby without pain and without complications.
Afterword
Today, most obstetricians-gynecologists agree: EPA is still one of the most modern methods of anesthesia in childbirth. Nevertheless, it is not ideal, if only because it significantly increases the cost of childbirth. But science does not stand still, obstetricians do not stop there and continue to search for optimal care for women in childbirth. So, for example, now in England the birth is increasingly popular ... under hypnosis. The essence of the technique is that experienced psychologists "probe the soil" in advance for the susceptibility of a woman to hypnosis, stage by stage prepare it for an important moment throughout pregnancy. With future mummies, classes are conducted to introduce trance, resulting in newly acquired skills helping to give birth to a healthy baby without pain and fear. How to know, perhaps, this method in the near future will become a worthy alternative to epidural anesthesia. Time will tell.