10 ms·

Focus on Infants During Childbirth Leaves U.S. Moms in Danger

96 points by AlphaWeaver 9y ago

laoba 9y ago
Heard this story on the way home, made the drive hard trying to hold back the tears. Off topic but I have two healthy daughters and a healthy wife. When I was with my wife giving birth in the hospital it was a terrifying feeling knowing much of it was out of my control. I can only imagine what these husbands went through watching their wives die right before their eyes
- 35bge57dtjku 9y ago
  It sucks, but that's how humans existed for 300,000+ years.
  - brewdad 9y ago
    Welp. No need to progress as a species. As it has always been so it shall ever be.
  - Kluny 9y ago
    What a brutally insensitive comment.
    - le-mark 9y ago
      I don't read this as being insensitive, I read it as a reminder to be thankful and mindful of the 'miracles' of modern medicine. Application of the principal of charity.
      - 35bge57dtjku 9y ago
        Thanks
jbandela1 9y ago
So sad. I think that this is one of the areas where the advances in machine learning in recent years can actually save lives. In medicine, the overlooking of subtle and not so subtle clues because you are focused on something else that grabs your attention is probably one of the big causes of these preventable deaths. Computers are wonderful in that they can always be analyzing and putting together patterns even when humans are focused on something else. My hope is that in the near future these systems will get deployed throughout the healthcare system and save many lives. On a different note, one of the most important things for doctors to develop is a "gut feeling" of badly sick vs sick vs not sick. Some of the best doctors I worked with had an uncanny sense that there was something terribly wrong with the patient, even when the lab data, etc was not very alarming, and by acting quickly prevented all sorts of complications.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  I just had a disheartening conversation with someone involved in healthcare data AI, not a doctor rather a technologist. The topic of maternal death came up, mentioned that the US was going backwards, and holy smokes it was an eye opener. 1 - they did not believe the maternal mortality data capturing methods in other countries was on par with US so failed to see the backwards trends in the US alone. 2 - called my interest in pointing out maternal death rates "noble" but misguided as hospitals will pay attention to their "pain points" such as out of control costs, readmission rates. 3 - after pointing out that pregnancy is the 6th highest reason for death women 15-34, said we should focus on the top 5 because that would have more impact on women's health. There was more but those were main points. I ended my debate with this message: pregnancy is the one "illness" where the patient was likely relatively healthy to begin, and once over, will likely have similar health after with 100% guaranteed remission upon menopause. Hospitals just need to keep them alive. What other medical condition can have such positive outcomes over the long term? The whole conversation just kept reinforcing the point that maternal outcomes are indeed affected by society / medical professionals not caring enough.
  - cbanek 9y ago
    Pregnancy at least used to be one of the things insurance companies were excited to cover you for. It means you aren't sick, and the more money they spend (and labor is pretty cheap, compared to a lot of health care), the more likely they'll save it in the future by having a healthy mom and a healthy baby. Unhealthy/premature babies can be a huge ongoing expense.
robmiller 9y ago
The ability to protect the health of mothers and babies in childbirth is a basic measure of a society's development. Yet every year in the U.S., 700 to 900 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, and some 65,000 nearly die — by many measures, the worst record in the developed world. Being one of the statistics sucks. Coming up on 37 years since I was born and she was gone less than 30 days later from a pregnancy-induced rare blood disease. Middle class. Suburban Chicago. Instilled in me from a very young age to try to live a good life because of her sacrifice.
- amputect 9y ago
  That's terrible, I am sorry for your loss.
shirro 9y ago
My wife was assessed as a preeclampsia risk during all her pregnancies. The last one they were so concerned she was airlifted to the state's top maternity and neonatal hospital. I can't imagine getting the same level of care in a profit motivated healthcare system without bankrupting our family. I doubt that it is the focus on infants that is the real problem in the US but it might be difficult to say what the real problem is without getting into a shitstorm as health care has become so politicised.
- refurb 9y ago
  I can't imagine getting the same level of care in a profit motivated healthcare system without bankrupting our family. That happens all the time in the US without bankrupting people.
  - webnrrd2k 9y ago
    It also happens all the time with bankrupting people. I have several friends that have gone bankrupt due to medical conditions, one who's now homeless because he contracted MRSA in the ER, and it took 9 months in sub-ICU and several long, expensive surgeries. His insurance capped at at 1 million per year, but his bill was way over that by 6 months. I think it ended up being 1.5 or 2.5 million total, but I could be wrong. So I'm not quite sure what you point is... That it's possible to get expensive care without going bankrupt? Sometimes the US medical system works well?
  - shirro 9y ago
    Bankruptcy wouldn't be the worst outcome. Our private medical insurance and income were never considered in our treatment and while controlling health care costs is a concern everywhere I never felt it influenced the delivery of services. We have more doctors per capita, more hospital beds, better life expectancy and spend less on health care and do it with a comparable tax burden and lower public debt. Nowhere in the article does it acknowledge that the developed countries with falling maternal mortality rates have very different healthcare systems to the US. It just might be a factor in this.
cbanek 9y ago
I feel in the US that we have an almost unnatural desire to protect children, to the exclusion of other people. Sure, who can be against children? They're young, cute (as long as you aren't changing their diapers at the time), and innocent of any possible wrong doing. Anything bad they do is just reflected on poor parenting, if that's the case or not. But yet the same pro-life people who want to save every child's life don't seem nearly so sympathetic to mothers, even mothers that want to have healthy children. The calls for de-funding planned parenthood and bad maternity leave policies are at odds with having healthy babies and families. And healthy families are exactly what insurance companies, the government, and families can agree on. (It's cheaper for insurance, more citizens to be tax payers, and families love kids) Yet in the political sphere, we're trying to take away programs like SNAP and WIC (which provide assistance to families and mothers). It's a lot cheaper to feed a baby at home and keep them healthy than it is to feed them in a hospital. Don't even get me started on childhood education. I do think we have the technology to do much better, but we lack funding, education, and political will. And it's all become entangled in the welfare/abortion debate, which in America seems evergreen for political abuse.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  > But yet the same pro-life people who want to save every child's life don't seem nearly so sympathetic to mothers, even mothers that want to have healthy children. This is rather disingenuous if you're referring to the practice of making sure one's children are healthy by murdering the unhealthy ones before birth. If, on the other hand, you refer to the coexistence of pro-life positions with being unwilling to allocate money to healthcare... Yeah, that's unfortunate, although not inherently contradictory (in my experience, both frequently co-occur with a strong emphasis on private charity rather that government services).
  - cbanek 9y ago
    While there is something to be said for screening for genetic diseases, etc, I was referring more to how pro-life people more seem to care about people having babies, rather than those babies being treated well and having a good life and good future. Healthcare, education, nutrition, and safe & stable housing are key to a young family. I hear a lot about how we shouldn't have abortions, but I worry more about all the kids and babies in foster care that aren't getting the love and attention they deserve. Another hugely underfunded system that is notorious for abuse. I've got nothing against people being for life, and having kids. I'd suggest they go adopt a few kids rather than having them though. It's probably what Jesus would want you to do. But I can't and won't prescribe for everyone or even me before I'd have to make such a choice. Life is strange, and complicated in so many ways. Ways so crazy people couldn't invent them if they tried. I personally don't think we need to make it harder on anyone.
yisymphony 9y ago
Is there anything the family can do to be better prepared when the institution is not prepared? My wife is pregnant (high-risk) and we have been concerned since reading this article. We are in the SF Bay Area.
- sjg007 9y ago
  Go to UCSF or Stanford. California follows the high risk protocol. Also just ask your doctor about this.
- joatmon-snoo 9y ago
  Perhaps try reaching out to the reporters, or even some of the experts mentioned in the article? I've done it before and gotten responses, and in the cases of an article like this I can't imagine you'd be the only person with such questions.
- robmiller 9y ago
  Found this interesting comment on Reddit about "H" teams, and evidently they're at Kaiser. https://www.reddit.com/r/BabyBumps/comments/6ar5xi/trigger_this_is_scary_but_its_important_to_know/dhgtge0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BabyBumps/comments/6ar5xi/trigger_t...
- tathougies 9y ago
  Do you have a doctor you can trust right now, monitoring the pregnancy? Make sure they have a plan in place for whatever may come up, and that they've shared this with the appropriate hospital. UCSF, Stanford are probably the best hospitals to be at.
- JauntTrooper 9y ago
  We just had our first child a few months ago. We had some pretty serious complications, but the UCSF hospital system is amazing and all is good now. We are blessed to have world class hospitals in the Bay Area. As the article says California has been proactive and countered the national trend: "By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S." The major hospitals are some of the best in the state and probably contribute to those numbers, but just in case you may want to ask your OBGYN about the protocols and whether they have a hemorrhage cart or other recommended toolkits. I would also learn the symptoms of preeclampsia, and if you're ever concerned in the hospital, ask. Congratulations and best of luck!
unit91 9y ago
> While there is something to be said for screening out genetic diseases, etc You mean "screening out" people who suffer from genetic diseases. Why not "screen out" people when they develop chronic conditions later in life, too? Or any other group the rest of society may deem unworthy, like Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and communists?
- cbanek 9y ago
  Sorry, I meant screen for. And yes, screening for people who suffer from genetic diseases. A lot of which we can't cure right now. But we are working on some of them. Childhood diseases are very tricky though, because they're typically quite rare, and many of the treatments are experimental. As for screening out people who develop chronic conditions in life, we already do that. Cancer is a genetic disease that happens later in life, and sometimes we can't cure it. Sometimes that person wants assisted suicide rather than going through the pain of living. That's their choice I think. I think the big thing is as technology progresses, and we can both cure more and people can't pay for it without insurance, what do we do? Should we cure 100 babies in Africa or one in the US? They're both life, but very different cost. Shouldn't we save more babies if we can? Does where a baby gets born imply how much we should care about it? When you go as far as basically the holocaust, I think that's pretty crazy. We're talking about naturally occurring diseases and problems that we may or may not be able to cure. How much of someone else's money should be spent on it is an open and tricky question, as the patient would likely spend any amount to stay alive. At that point, maybe compassion is looking at the larger picture: we're all going to die at some point. But medicine these days is about delaying the inevitable at huge cost to someone else. Really, I think the long term solution is taking the profit motive out of healthcare. If helping people live better lives isn't good enough, then maybe medicine isn't your field. And we should make healthcare non-profit and not tax it, and do other things to encourage it.
  - unit91 9y ago
    > When you go as far as basically the holocaust, I think that's pretty crazy. Is it? 52 million babies have been killed by legal abortion in the U.S. since 1969 [1]. That's vastly more than the Holocaust. We're living through the American Holocaust right now. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_U...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
femwarrior 9y ago
"states devoted about 6 percent of block grants in 2016 to programs for mothers, compared to 78 percent for infants and special-needs children" Maybe that simply reflects the need - babies have more issues, so more attention is needed? I really dislike such manipulative use of statistics.
newman314 9y ago
My daughter was born tonight. As I sit here holding her while her mom tries to get some sleep after an emergency C section, this was a terrifying read.
- Axsuul 9y ago
  Congratulations, I hope both baby and mother are doing okay.
peter303 9y ago
Very sad. However maternal mortality rates have declined so much in past century or so, that a case like this merits a news story. There is still room to improve.
jvvw 9y ago
The article obviously make comparisons to the UK and having given birth twice in the UK, it struck me as really strange that you could go for 8 hours without having your blood pressure measured. I can't remember the exact interval they do it at here, but I had straightforward natural births with no major risk factors and it felt like I was having my blood pressure checked frequently when I was in labour. I was also surprised that somebody would be induced that early unless there was a risk that made it necessary. I really can't imagine that happening here and most pregnant women I've known have been desperate to avoid being induced if they can help it. I don't know if it's relevant to maternal mortality, but the epidural rates in the US always stun me compare to those in the UK. The culture in my limited circles is to try and avoid them if you can manage without. You can obviously have one if you want and there is an anaesthetist available, but it's been a small minority of people I know who have gone in knowing they definitely want one. I guess they cost money too so the NHS probably doesn't push them!
- le-mark 9y ago
  My understanding is that during natural childbirth, the pain level gradual increases as contractions increase in strength, so there's supposedly and acclimation to the pain going on. When labor is induced, the strong contractions start right away and the pain is just as intense without the the ramp up. Source: my sister who had labor induced :) Is it possible that there's a higher use of epidurals that correlates with induced labor because of this? Continuing with my sisters example, she did not plan on having an epidural, but requested one after being induced.

96 points by AlphaWeaver 9y ago

Heard this story on the way home, made the drive hard trying to hold back the tears. Off topic but I have two healthy daughters and a healthy wife. When I was with my wife giving birth in the hospital it was a terrifying feeling knowing much of it was out of my control. I can only imagine what these husbands went through watching their wives die right before their eyes

35bge57dtjku 9y ago
It sucks, but that's how humans existed for 300,000+ years.
- brewdad 9y ago
  Welp. No need to progress as a species. As it has always been so it shall ever be.
- Kluny 9y ago
  What a brutally insensitive comment.
  - le-mark 9y ago
    I don't read this as being insensitive, I read it as a reminder to be thankful and mindful of the 'miracles' of modern medicine. Application of the principal of charity.
    - 35bge57dtjku 9y ago
      Thanks

jbandela1 9y ago

So sad. I think that this is one of the areas where the advances in machine learning in recent years can actually save lives. In medicine, the overlooking of subtle and not so subtle clues because you are focused on something else that grabs your attention is probably one of the big causes of these preventable deaths. Computers are wonderful in that they can always be analyzing and putting together patterns even when humans are focused on something else. My hope is that in the near future these systems will get deployed throughout the healthcare system and save many lives. On a different note, one of the most important things for doctors to develop is a "gut feeling" of badly sick vs sick vs not sick. Some of the best doctors I worked with had an uncanny sense that there was something terribly wrong with the patient, even when the lab data, etc was not very alarming, and by acting quickly prevented all sorts of complications.

rabboRubble 9y ago
I just had a disheartening conversation with someone involved in healthcare data AI, not a doctor rather a technologist. The topic of maternal death came up, mentioned that the US was going backwards, and holy smokes it was an eye opener. 1 - they did not believe the maternal mortality data capturing methods in other countries was on par with US so failed to see the backwards trends in the US alone. 2 - called my interest in pointing out maternal death rates "noble" but misguided as hospitals will pay attention to their "pain points" such as out of control costs, readmission rates. 3 - after pointing out that pregnancy is the 6th highest reason for death women 15-34, said we should focus on the top 5 because that would have more impact on women's health. There was more but those were main points. I ended my debate with this message: pregnancy is the one "illness" where the patient was likely relatively healthy to begin, and once over, will likely have similar health after with 100% guaranteed remission upon menopause. Hospitals just need to keep them alive. What other medical condition can have such positive outcomes over the long term? The whole conversation just kept reinforcing the point that maternal outcomes are indeed affected by society / medical professionals not caring enough.
- cbanek 9y ago
  Pregnancy at least used to be one of the things insurance companies were excited to cover you for. It means you aren't sick, and the more money they spend (and labor is pretty cheap, compared to a lot of health care), the more likely they'll save it in the future by having a healthy mom and a healthy baby. Unhealthy/premature babies can be a huge ongoing expense.

robmiller 9y ago

The ability to protect the health of mothers and babies in childbirth is a basic measure of a society's development. Yet every year in the U.S., 700 to 900 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, and some 65,000 nearly die — by many measures, the worst record in the developed world. Being one of the statistics sucks. Coming up on 37 years since I was born and she was gone less than 30 days later from a pregnancy-induced rare blood disease. Middle class. Suburban Chicago. Instilled in me from a very young age to try to live a good life because of her sacrifice.

amputect 9y ago
That's terrible, I am sorry for your loss.

shirro 9y ago

My wife was assessed as a preeclampsia risk during all her pregnancies. The last one they were so concerned she was airlifted to the state's top maternity and neonatal hospital. I can't imagine getting the same level of care in a profit motivated healthcare system without bankrupting our family. I doubt that it is the focus on infants that is the real problem in the US but it might be difficult to say what the real problem is without getting into a shitstorm as health care has become so politicised.

refurb 9y ago
I can't imagine getting the same level of care in a profit motivated healthcare system without bankrupting our family. That happens all the time in the US without bankrupting people.
- webnrrd2k 9y ago
  It also happens all the time with bankrupting people. I have several friends that have gone bankrupt due to medical conditions, one who's now homeless because he contracted MRSA in the ER, and it took 9 months in sub-ICU and several long, expensive surgeries. His insurance capped at at 1 million per year, but his bill was way over that by 6 months. I think it ended up being 1.5 or 2.5 million total, but I could be wrong. So I'm not quite sure what you point is... That it's possible to get expensive care without going bankrupt? Sometimes the US medical system works well?
- shirro 9y ago
  Bankruptcy wouldn't be the worst outcome. Our private medical insurance and income were never considered in our treatment and while controlling health care costs is a concern everywhere I never felt it influenced the delivery of services. We have more doctors per capita, more hospital beds, better life expectancy and spend less on health care and do it with a comparable tax burden and lower public debt. Nowhere in the article does it acknowledge that the developed countries with falling maternal mortality rates have very different healthcare systems to the US. It just might be a factor in this.

cbanek 9y ago

I feel in the US that we have an almost unnatural desire to protect children, to the exclusion of other people. Sure, who can be against children? They're young, cute (as long as you aren't changing their diapers at the time), and innocent of any possible wrong doing. Anything bad they do is just reflected on poor parenting, if that's the case or not. But yet the same pro-life people who want to save every child's life don't seem nearly so sympathetic to mothers, even mothers that want to have healthy children. The calls for de-funding planned parenthood and bad maternity leave policies are at odds with having healthy babies and families. And healthy families are exactly what insurance companies, the government, and families can agree on. (It's cheaper for insurance, more citizens to be tax payers, and families love kids) Yet in the political sphere, we're trying to take away programs like SNAP and WIC (which provide assistance to families and mothers). It's a lot cheaper to feed a baby at home and keep them healthy than it is to feed them in a hospital. Don't even get me started on childhood education. I do think we have the technology to do much better, but we lack funding, education, and political will. And it's all become entangled in the welfare/abortion debate, which in America seems evergreen for political abuse.

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
> But yet the same pro-life people who want to save every child's life don't seem nearly so sympathetic to mothers, even mothers that want to have healthy children. This is rather disingenuous if you're referring to the practice of making sure one's children are healthy by murdering the unhealthy ones before birth. If, on the other hand, you refer to the coexistence of pro-life positions with being unwilling to allocate money to healthcare... Yeah, that's unfortunate, although not inherently contradictory (in my experience, both frequently co-occur with a strong emphasis on private charity rather that government services).
- cbanek 9y ago
  While there is something to be said for screening for genetic diseases, etc, I was referring more to how pro-life people more seem to care about people having babies, rather than those babies being treated well and having a good life and good future. Healthcare, education, nutrition, and safe & stable housing are key to a young family. I hear a lot about how we shouldn't have abortions, but I worry more about all the kids and babies in foster care that aren't getting the love and attention they deserve. Another hugely underfunded system that is notorious for abuse. I've got nothing against people being for life, and having kids. I'd suggest they go adopt a few kids rather than having them though. It's probably what Jesus would want you to do. But I can't and won't prescribe for everyone or even me before I'd have to make such a choice. Life is strange, and complicated in so many ways. Ways so crazy people couldn't invent them if they tried. I personally don't think we need to make it harder on anyone.

yisymphony 9y ago

Is there anything the family can do to be better prepared when the institution is not prepared? My wife is pregnant (high-risk) and we have been concerned since reading this article. We are in the SF Bay Area.

sjg007 9y ago
Go to UCSF or Stanford. California follows the high risk protocol. Also just ask your doctor about this.
joatmon-snoo 9y ago
Perhaps try reaching out to the reporters, or even some of the experts mentioned in the article? I've done it before and gotten responses, and in the cases of an article like this I can't imagine you'd be the only person with such questions.
robmiller 9y ago
Found this interesting comment on Reddit about "H" teams, and evidently they're at Kaiser. https://www.reddit.com/r/BabyBumps/comments/6ar5xi/trigger_this_is_scary_but_its_important_to_know/dhgtge0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BabyBumps/comments/6ar5xi/trigger_t...
tathougies 9y ago
Do you have a doctor you can trust right now, monitoring the pregnancy? Make sure they have a plan in place for whatever may come up, and that they've shared this with the appropriate hospital. UCSF, Stanford are probably the best hospitals to be at.
JauntTrooper 9y ago
We just had our first child a few months ago. We had some pretty serious complications, but the UCSF hospital system is amazing and all is good now. We are blessed to have world class hospitals in the Bay Area. As the article says California has been proactive and countered the national trend: "By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S." The major hospitals are some of the best in the state and probably contribute to those numbers, but just in case you may want to ask your OBGYN about the protocols and whether they have a hemorrhage cart or other recommended toolkits. I would also learn the symptoms of preeclampsia, and if you're ever concerned in the hospital, ask. Congratulations and best of luck!

unit91 9y ago

> While there is something to be said for screening out genetic diseases, etc You mean "screening out" people who suffer from genetic diseases. Why not "screen out" people when they develop chronic conditions later in life, too? Or any other group the rest of society may deem unworthy, like Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and communists?

cbanek 9y ago
Sorry, I meant screen for. And yes, screening for people who suffer from genetic diseases. A lot of which we can't cure right now. But we are working on some of them. Childhood diseases are very tricky though, because they're typically quite rare, and many of the treatments are experimental. As for screening out people who develop chronic conditions in life, we already do that. Cancer is a genetic disease that happens later in life, and sometimes we can't cure it. Sometimes that person wants assisted suicide rather than going through the pain of living. That's their choice I think. I think the big thing is as technology progresses, and we can both cure more and people can't pay for it without insurance, what do we do? Should we cure 100 babies in Africa or one in the US? They're both life, but very different cost. Shouldn't we save more babies if we can? Does where a baby gets born imply how much we should care about it? When you go as far as basically the holocaust, I think that's pretty crazy. We're talking about naturally occurring diseases and problems that we may or may not be able to cure. How much of someone else's money should be spent on it is an open and tricky question, as the patient would likely spend any amount to stay alive. At that point, maybe compassion is looking at the larger picture: we're all going to die at some point. But medicine these days is about delaying the inevitable at huge cost to someone else. Really, I think the long term solution is taking the profit motive out of healthcare. If helping people live better lives isn't good enough, then maybe medicine isn't your field. And we should make healthcare non-profit and not tax it, and do other things to encourage it.
- unit91 9y ago
  > When you go as far as basically the holocaust, I think that's pretty crazy. Is it? 52 million babies have been killed by legal abortion in the U.S. since 1969 [1]. That's vastly more than the Holocaust. We're living through the American Holocaust right now. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_U...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

femwarrior 9y ago

"states devoted about 6 percent of block grants in 2016 to programs for mothers, compared to 78 percent for infants and special-needs children" Maybe that simply reflects the need - babies have more issues, so more attention is needed? I really dislike such manipulative use of statistics.

newman314 9y ago

My daughter was born tonight. As I sit here holding her while her mom tries to get some sleep after an emergency C section, this was a terrifying read.

Axsuul 9y ago
Congratulations, I hope both baby and mother are doing okay.

peter303 9y ago

Very sad. However maternal mortality rates have declined so much in past century or so, that a case like this merits a news story. There is still room to improve.

jvvw 9y ago

The article obviously make comparisons to the UK and having given birth twice in the UK, it struck me as really strange that you could go for 8 hours without having your blood pressure measured. I can't remember the exact interval they do it at here, but I had straightforward natural births with no major risk factors and it felt like I was having my blood pressure checked frequently when I was in labour. I was also surprised that somebody would be induced that early unless there was a risk that made it necessary. I really can't imagine that happening here and most pregnant women I've known have been desperate to avoid being induced if they can help it. I don't know if it's relevant to maternal mortality, but the epidural rates in the US always stun me compare to those in the UK. The culture in my limited circles is to try and avoid them if you can manage without. You can obviously have one if you want and there is an anaesthetist available, but it's been a small minority of people I know who have gone in knowing they definitely want one. I guess they cost money too so the NHS probably doesn't push them!

le-mark 9y ago
My understanding is that during natural childbirth, the pain level gradual increases as contractions increase in strength, so there's supposedly and acclimation to the pain going on. When labor is induced, the strong contractions start right away and the pain is just as intense without the the ramp up. Source: my sister who had labor induced :) Is it possible that there's a higher use of epidurals that correlates with induced labor because of this? Continuing with my sisters example, she did not plan on having an epidural, but requested one after being induced.