The reason why mothers are great is not only the difficult period of pregnancy in October. Although you can finally see your beloved baby during childbirth, the pain has also reached its peak. So, how can childbirth be less painful?
Childbirth pain ranks second in the medical pain index, second only to burning pain, and should be said to be the most painful thing most women will ever experience in their lives. The main factors causing labor pain are: regular contraction of the uterus, elongation or tearing of uterine muscle fibers causing severe pain; pressure on the birth canal when the fetus passes through the birth canal, especially damage and stretching of the lower uterine segment and cervix; psychological stress due to labor Lack of experience, as well as various information exaggerating the pain of childbirth, make expectant mothers full of fear of childbirth, leading to muscle tension, causing uterine contractions to intensify, prolong their duration, and intensify the pain. Labor pain not only causes expectant mothers to sweat profusely, nausea, and vomiting, prolonging the labor process, but sometimes affects the normal delivery of the baby and even causes suffocation.
Many expectant mothers spend a lot of energy and endure pain due to the long delivery process, which lasts for several hours. As a result, when they finally gave birth, they were not energetic and had to choose a risky caesarean section. Eat twice.
Cesarean section harms women\’s health. In February this year, the World Health Organization published a survey report in the authoritative medical journal \”The Lancet\” and pointed out that more than 46% of Chinese pregnant women choose caesarean section, the caesarean section rate is the highest in the world, and 25% of pregnant women do not need caesarean section at all. For this reason, the World Health Organization warns that unnecessary caesareans can harm women\’s health.
According to experts, many women choose caesarean section because they are afraid of the pain during delivery, but they do not know that women will feel more obvious pain when they wake up after the operation. Although the body is very weak at this time, the mother cannot eat immediately due to the operation, which will make the mother more uncomfortable. Such problems will not occur with natural delivery. In addition, after a caesarean section, the mother\’s body recovery is much slower than that after a vaginal birth, and the pain lasts much longer than the several hours of vaginal birth.
The most critical issue is that caesarean section will leave scars on the uterus, and in the next few decades, once women suffer from other diseases and require surgery, doctors will be faced with a scarred uterus, which will undoubtedly increase the risk of surgery. difficult and brings great trouble to treatment. \”Today\’s women are choosing caesarean sections to relieve pain during childbirth without considering the potential harm in the future.\”
In addition to the impact on the mother, caesarean section also has many harmful effects on the baby. After a normal physiological delivery process, the fetus will be squeezed by the birth canal, and the brain will be stimulated accordingly, which is beneficial to the child\’s future intellectual development. However, babies born by caesarean section lack this important process. Not only that, the mucus and water in the airways of naturally born babies will also be squeezed out. Therefore, the number of neonatal aspiration pneumonia and neonatal wet lungs after birth is relatively reduced. Babies born by caesarean section are prone to have these breathing problems.Susceptible to lung disease.
Painless delivery requires the cooperation of the anesthesiology department. In fact, the medical community has been looking for a way to solve or alleviate the pain of childbirth without affecting the health of mother and baby. As early as the 18th century, foreign countries began to experiment with \”painless childbirth.\” Painless delivery has become quite popular in Western countries, and is also known as \”labor analgesia\” in medicine. This can not only reduce the pain of maternal delivery, but more importantly, it can reduce unnecessary oxygen consumption and energy consumption, prevent maternal and fetal metabolic acidosis, speed up the progress of labor, and reduce postpartum hemorrhage.
Experts say that the latest method is to use combined spinal and epidural block for labor analgesia, because this anesthesia method has quick effects, small dosage, and high safety. Painless delivery requires the cooperation of doctors from multiple disciplines. There must be an anesthesiologist who is proficient in childbirth knowledge and an obstetrician who understands anesthesia. The two require close communication and cooperation.
Experts remind that although painless delivery does not have any adverse effects on the baby, expectant mothers need to bear certain risks. Common complications of euthanasia include low blood pressure and mild headache, but serious life-threatening complications are rare. Common adverse reactions are mainly manifested in the impact on labor and placental blood supply. Therefore, the entire delivery process requires joint monitoring by obstetricians and anesthesiologists.
Choosing the Appropriate Method of Anesthesia for Childbirth Commonly used methods of anesthesia include general anesthesia and regional anesthesia. In general anesthesia, anesthetics including sedatives, hypnotics, and muscle relaxants are given intravenously. Tracheal intubation was performed after the mother fell asleep. After that, inhalational anesthetics are mainly used. Inhalational anesthetics are prescribed whenever surgery is performed. If you wake up from general anesthesia, it means that the anesthetic drug has been metabolized, so the wound will feel pain immediately.
Regional anesthesia is a commonly used anesthesia method, which is divided into spinal anesthesia, epidural anesthesia, dorsal anesthesia, paracervical block, pudendal nerve block and perineal local infiltration. Among them, semi-general anesthesia (spinal anesthesia and epidural anesthesia) are the main ones. The mother needs to lie on her side, bend over, and assume a \”cooked shrimp\” shape. After spinal anesthesia and epidural anesthesia, the mother\’s abdomen and lower limbs are numb and she cannot exert force, but her consciousness is clear. The mother can participate in the birth process and hear the baby\’s cry for the first time, which is impossible under general anesthesia. .
There are certain risks in anesthesia delivery: 1. General anesthesia has an impact on the mother, the fetus and the birth process. Maternal: The most likely outcome of general anesthesia is vomiting and aspiration of these gastric contents in pregnant women. Because a pregnant woman\’s stomach empties much more slowly than a non-pregnant woman, the physical and mental stress of childbirth increases the chance of vomiting. If you unfortunately inhale these highly acidic stomach contents, it may cause severe aspiration pneumonia.
Fetus: Since the function of the fetal liver and kidney system to metabolize analgesics is not fully developed, large doses of analgesics will remain in the fetus for a long time, thus suppressing the central nervous system of the fetus and newborn.
Delivery process: Most inhaled anesthetics cause uterine contractions and hypotonia,It may lead to prolonged labor, poor postpartum uterine contraction, and increased bleeding.
2. Regional anesthesia is relatively safe, but may cause complications. Regional anesthesia is relatively safe for both the mother and the fetus, so whether it is used to relieve labor pain or for caesarean section, it is the most commonly used method. It differs from general anesthesia or inhalation anesthesia in that it reduces the potential for anesthetic drug stress in the newborn and reduces the chance of aspiration pneumonia in the mother. Because the dosage is small, pregnant women can still stay awake and breathe on their own, which is safe.
The safety is higher than that of general anesthesia. However, complications may still occur, including hypotension, local anesthetic toxicity, total dorsal spinal anesthesia, and post-dorsal spinal anesthesia headache syndrome.
The purpose of anesthesia is to give the mother a comfortable and painless feeling as much as possible without affecting the physiological functions of the mother and fetus, and to achieve a healthy fetus and maintain maternal safety. Therefore, after understanding the necessity and risks of anesthesia, there is no need to be afraid of anesthesia.