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- Hacker News
- Epidurals apparently also reduce the likelihood of birthgasm
- I have no clue why I decided to read this, but I am glad I did. Good read.by SpyCoder77
- I've woken up from surgery with an epidural that had a leak. That wasn't fun.
It made it emotionally difficult to get surgery again.
by Findecanor - Got knee surgery with an epidural that leaked. The surgery itself went fine but the headache and nausea afterwards were absolutely brutal.by lrasinen
- Anecdata, but I spoke to a mom here who declined an epidural during childbirth by choice. Her son is a champion big wave surfer.by slopdetector
- Given that 20-90% of people don't receive one across various modern countries, I think we have enough regular data. Otherwise like 80% of Germans would be champion athletes if a no-epidural birth really did that for you.
- are you suggesting that epidural usage or not during childbirth is correlated in some way with athletic ability of the child, decades later?by evil-olive
- Interesting to find out that the contents of epidurals are not standardized across facilities. If that is the case, then how can one definitely opine on the safety of them when the contents are locally designed cocktails?by economistbob
- > how can one definitely opine on the safety of them
Because the statistics still include all those variations. The variations are also not that huge, and are also independently studied.
You might as well ask how we can talk about the risk/safety of general anesthesia, given that different hospitals and even different anesthesiologists use different drugs.
by advisedwang - It's not as if people are pushing random drugs into epidurals. There's a small number of drugs that are commonly used and the differences come down to selecting the classes of drugs to be used, the particular drugs from those classes, and the dosing. There's no one right answer. In other words, it's just like the rest of anesthesia.by wl
- > This is partly because there aren't enough anesthetists For those of you who didn't think this was a word (which was me 60 seconds ago) it is a word, and is technically correct as opposed to anesthesiologistsby SpyCoder77
- My wife had knee replacement surgery two weeks ago. She was given an epidural for the procedure and it worked well for her. Our two children were born back in 79 & 82 (20th century) and epidurals were available but only as some sort of last resort so she did not get them.by johnp314
- It was surprising to see incidence of death by cesarean is almost 13 per 100k. It is commonly thought as the safest way and half of all births in my country are via cesarean.by Roark66
- Its hard to measure, but for the UK at least, and depending where you are, you try natural, then if shit goes wrong you graduate to ceasarian.
So it would be interesting to see the elective vs crash ceasarian rate.
by KaiserPro - I think this is going to depend strongly on population. Average age of the mother, width of the pelvic canal, and similar are going to vary widely with culture, race and country.by clark_dent
- In what country do you live? I've had children in two European countries, in both it was common knowledge that natural birth is safer then cesarean and doctors/hospital strongly prefer it.by photonios
- There's selection bias. High risk deliveries tend to start at or convert to cesarian at the first sign of trouble.by wl
- We had 3 kids, one with an epidural and induced labor and the other 2 were natural child birth, no medication at all, and my wife much preferred the natural child birth -- all of them at at a hospital "birthing center", with a five minute walk to an OR if needed. She was more present emotionally at birth, we were able to walk out of the hospital with our baby a few hours later. She was practically bedridden for a week after the induced labor with the epidural.
Obviously, I'm only a spectator, but the overall experience seemed way less traumatic and stressful for her with the natural child birth, working with midwives and nurses rather than doctors.
by empath75 - I wonder how much of that is selection bias? In my (admittedly limited) experiences around the labor and delivery process, c-sections were (apart from when requested) advised for high-risk pregnancies and as a recourse for something having gone wrong in the L/D process. One could reasonably expect that both of those situations would indicate a higher risk for mortality from surgery.
Note that per Wikipedia [0], death by abdominal surgery in general in High-HDI countries is on the order of 100-1000/100k.
- Here in Argentina the nurses discourage you to seek it, then they blame the anesthesiologist is not available. We have had 2 with cesarian and one friend was in so much pain that she had to ask for a cesarian too.by stivatron
- I've heard a few times now that giving birth while lying on the back is a relatively modern invention and that for most of history women adopted squatting or leaning forward positions.[1] And that the back position is actually much more painful. How much does laying on the back increase the pain to the point where an epidural is necessary? Is it still necessary in the other positions?
disclaimer: I know nothing about this
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260401-women-were-never...
by mef51 - When you've been given an epidural, you are generally required to be in a bed. (This doesn't answer your question, but I think it is relevant.)by eblume
- Anecdotally from personal experience (gave birth to one child on back, the other in a squatting position, didn't have an epidural for either), the pain didn't depend on position - very painful both times! But pushing felt much much easier squatting than on my back.
The hospital only had two rooms suitably equipped for giving birth in a squatting position, so I was lucky to get one second time.
by jvvw - There's a very strong podcast series about the common failure of Epidurals: "The retrievals" season 2, by serial productions. I found it rather eye-opening. The series includes reporting on a conference of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) where the professionals in this field also found it eye opening. (mostly episode 2)
I don't bring this up to say that actually Epidurals suck, just to bring attention to the fact that they can fail, and that the system has historically handled such failure really poorly, and that the system itself isn't very well aware of this issue. This isn't just opinion from some podcast, but also admitted by the professionals working within this field.
It's also something valuable to be aware of when you or your partner is planning to have an epidural, because there is real space (and even a need) for advocacy for the patient when an epidural fails and the woman giving birth is in excruciating pain.
by rocqua - I was shocked to discover that if a woman gets an epidural, it stops producing oxytocin that mitigates the pain for the baby (and mom).
That sounds absolutely horrible for that little creature. Yet I am a man, so I really am not allowed to speak on the matter and I absolutely let my wife decide entirely on the matter by herself (we had absolutely no time for an epidural, my wife delivered both kids way too fast)
- The problem that The Retrievals deals with is epidurals failing during cesarians, which, they're quick to emphasize, is painful, open abdominal surgery. The not-so-simple solution is to convert to general anesthesia (anesthetic gas, IV propofol, etc). This isn't without its risks to the mother and the child, so there's reluctance on the part of anesthesiologists to go that route if there's other options. The result is unnecessary birth trauma.by wl
- Male scheduled for my 3rd epidural with steroids next week for on-going spinal stenosis, relieves pain for a few days, then back to pain.
Will go for minimally invasive micro laminectomy next, tired of treating symptoms and not the root cause.
In that procedure surgeon will remove parts of lower vertebrae that is pinching the nerve bundle, nerves that progress down each leg.
Success rates of better than 70%, it's a gamble. But willing to accept that rather than end up on addictive pain pills for life.
3 to 6 months recovery period before active lifestyle again, cannot risk disturbing the "fix". Giving up flip turns in lap swimming for quite a while. Supplemental covers the other 20% that medicare won't pay.
Cash paying patients suffer $35k to $45 K for the procedure.
Medicare pony's up only about $6,500, which the surgeon must accept, no extra cash changes hands.
Supplemental covers the 20% that medicare will not pay.
- Honestly surgeons should be paid hourly like technicians. $800/hr or something like that. For a 2 hour procedure, $1600. Another $5k for facility and support staff. Looks like medicare is on point...by WarmWash
- My mother had this surgery and advised me to never have it done due to complicationsby rythmshifter
- Friend, as many others are saying, you should try to avoid surgery as much as possible.
Check out moveu.com - it's cheap (and free to start if you want for their drip marketing to send you a coupon code) and full of excellent information, videos, community etc for fixing yourself. I have no affiliation - just a happy user.
Many people have been able to fix situations that the butchers (surgeons) assured them they could only treat with surgery. And there's many more who have had spinal surgery who say they're now stuck for life with a terrible situation.
by nchmy