Epidurals: Risks and Alternatives for Labor - A Student's Report

Question
hi my name is paige hilz i am a student in parks school. We are doing report and i choose epidurals for my report because i had a a hard time with my epidrual . my daughter is  year old and i still  have pain where i had my epidural and i had very bad migains. i guess the point  is , is that i go to school with a lot of pregnant gurls so i want to give them the facts on why epidurals arent the best choice for labour medicine. so if you could help me i would really apericate it . thank alote .
paige hilz

Answer
There are several methods of pain relief during labor. Stadol or Demeral are short acting barbiturates that will only take the edge off the labor. However, the best method of pain relief during labor is, indeed, an epidural anesthesia. Regional anesthesia (where you become numb from the waist down to the legs) can be spinal anesthesia or epidural anesthesia. In a spinal anesthesia, a needle is introduced into the spinal canal and some cerebrospinal fluid is removed and replaced with medication. This works very quickly to remove the pain. However, with a spinal, you can develop a very severe headache (due to the leakage of the CNS fluid). That is why epidurals are better. In an epidural, only the area surrounding the spinal canal is bathed with medication and no cerebrospinal fluid leaks out, thus no headache is developed. Sometimes, however, an error can occur and while trying to perform an epidural, the anesthesiologist inadvertently enters the spinal canal and you can develop a headache. However, in most situations, an epidural is the anesthetic of choice and the best way to go. A Foley catheter is also placed in your urinary bladder so you will not distend the bladder and have to run to the toilet every few minutes.