Epidurals

A very informative paper on medical risks of epidurals

Very interesting in light of the recent Christmas Miracle baby. Especially since in the Good Morning America interview the mom says she had just received an epidural minutes before (in fact, the anesthesiologist was the one doing cpr when the doctor came in).

From the section "Deaths from Epidural Anesthesia"

"Women are almost never given informed consent for epidurals. Even if they were just read two paragraphs from the package insert that comes with the medication used for epidurals (manufactured by Abbott Laboratories), they might think twice. The package insert states:

Local anesthetics rapidly cross the placenta, and when used for epidural, caudal or pudendal anesthesia, can cause varying degrees of maternal, fetal and neonatal toxicity.... Adverse reactions in the parturient, fetus and neonate involve alternations of the central nervous system, peripheral vascular tone and cardiac function.... Neurologic effects following epidural or caudal anesthesia may include spinal block of varying magnitude (including high or total spinal block); hypotension secondary to spinal block; urinary retention; fecal and urinary incontinence; loss of perineal sensation and sexual function; persistent anesthesia, paresthesia, weakness, paralysis of the lower extremities and loss of sphincter control all of which may have slow, incomplete or no recovery; headache; backache; septic meningitis; meningismus; slowing of labor; increased incidence of forceps delivery; cranial nerve palsies due to traction on nerves from loss of cerebrospinal fluid.

Who would sign a consent if it included the above language? The degree to which the facts about the risks of epidural anesthesia are hidden from women in labor is astonishing.

Mothers who have a fever are significantly more likely to have had epidural anesthesia.⁸² Therefor increasing the incidence of septic workups on newborns and the subsequent complications of this procedure.

We would hope that pregnant women would have a more informed explanation of the risks of epidural anesthesia than what is currently given, and would suspect that many would make other choices if true informed consent was given (before labor, when the woman still has time to prepare to cope with childbirth pain in other ways)."