Does Epidural Make Delivery Painless?

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When my husband and I were looking for baby delivery packages at hospitals, we came across this option that said, 'painless delivery'. On inquiring further, we found out that the epidural would ensure a painless delivery if we happened to have a vaginal birth. Now we were really excited at the prospect of having a totally painless delivery with an epidural anesthesia during labour. But on the ground, it did not go quite well as we had imagined it to be.

Epidural does give pain relief but if you imagine that it will make child birth a cakewalk for you, then you are wrong. Epidural probably only makes child birth easier by making the unbearable pain bearable. However, it does not make the entire thing painless. So, if you are tempted in by the prospect of a painless delivery by using epidural, then it is a bit of an eyewash.

Here are some of the facts about taking epidural anesthesia during labour that you should be aware of.

You Have To Be In Labour
You cannot get epidural before your labour pain starts. You have to dilate up to at least 4 cms to be eligible for epidural. And dilating 4 cms is not going to be painless. It will be bad enough to bring tears to your eyes.

The Channel
The epidural injection is given in between in your spine and that requires you to bend down to the lowest level that your pregnant body allows you. The injection itself will hurt because it is being injected into your spine. And all this has to be done while you are in labour.

The Push
When you have to give the final push to bring your baby into this world, your epidural will be taken away. This is because if you cannot feel anything, you will not be able to push your baby. So during the worst period of pain, you have no epidural.

Post Operative Pain
An episiotomy or cutting of the vaginal opening is given almost routinely during normal deliveries. You will not feel a thing when you are being stitched. But as soon as the effect of the epidural anesthesia during labour fades, you will feel the pinch of the pain. Trust me, painkillers do not cure that pain.

Post Epidural Backache
Having an epidural during pregnancy gives you a terrible backache that lasts for quite sometime. You could say that taking epidural will lengthen your post partum recovery period. If you do not take proper care, the back pain will never leave you.

So technically, epidural does not make delivery painless altogether. But it does help in reducing the pain manifold.