Pethidine

Pethidine's really cheap. It works out at less than a quid a dose, and that's why, despite it's known drawbacks, the NHS currently offer it to women as pain relief during labour. For many people it's not much use as a source of pain relief, unfortunately, and worse, if used during labour it also has adverse effects on your baby. It rapidly crosses the placenta, so if you are injected with pethidine during labour, your baby will receive a dose of the drug as well. It's a respiratory depressant, so it affects oxygen trasfer to your sprog at the critical point as she's being born, and studies have show depressed / slower rates for the start of breast-feeding ...  Read the complete review

when i went into labour with my son in jan 2006, aged 19, in had a pretty serious fear of needles and had read somewhere that if you move during an epidural injection you can be paralysed due to close proximity to the spinal cord. To this day i still dont know how true that is but it put me off in a big way. i had no visions of being able to go without any pain relief so i decided on pethidine. at 3 cm dilated i was given the first shot of this, along with an anti sickness drug. Minutes later i was throwing up everywhere and the midwife concluded the antisickness did not agree with me. I was given gas and air for the next 3 hours as i was still unable to keep anything ...  Read the complete review

After a horrendous experience of Epidural pain relief in my first labour I decided that when the time came for my second baby to start making an appearance I would try an alternative method of pain relief. I wanted to be a strong and brave mummy and use as little pain relief as possible but with a low barrier for pain I knew it was unlikely I would go completely natural. At 39 weeks pregnant I suffered some complications which resulted in a short hospital stay, I was told I would have to be induced with my daughter as they did not want to take any risks, having heard lots of horror stories of inductions and how painful they could be I knew any hope of a completely ...  Read the complete review

I found out i was pregnant with twins at my 12 weeks scan, on the weeks leading up to the birth i looked up and read about everything you could think of to do with babies. I read up everything about labour and birth so that i would have some idea of what was to come as it was my first pregnancy. The only one i had ruled out was pethidine. Ill tell you the reasons for it i had read that it can make baby quite sleepy and my thoughts were justified when my partners sister had her baby boy. She had an injection of pethidine to help her through the labour however when her baby was born it took them ages to get him to cry. This was due to the pethidine that had made ...  Read the complete review

Whilst I was pregnant I was advised to write a Birth Plan. Under the section 'Pain Relief', I requested none but if I was in a lot pain, I might try Gas & Air. As it turned out, in the throws of a 48 hour labour, I had all the forms of pain relief available to me! I had Pethidine when the TENS machine and Gas & Air were no longer effective. Pethidine is a very similar drug to morphine. Your midwife can administer Pethidine on her own authority. This makes Pethidine an excellent choice if you are giving birth at home although I was in hospital. You chan have Pethidine during the first stage of your labour (when contractions are just starting to open up the ...  Read the complete review