One of the things that happen when you get an epidural is that you have to restrict moving your body. The reason behind this is that there are fetal monitor, bladder catheter and IV fluids attached to you. So movement is not really advised. When you restrict your body movement during labor, it can possibly cause fetal distress and your baby may not be able to properly rotate to the optimal position for birth.

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Epidurals are known to slow down your labor as it interferes with the oxytocin hormone that is produced during your labor. When there is an interference with this hormone, obviously it will affect your ability to push effectively when the time comes. Also, when you can’t feel anything, pushing naturally becomes more difficult.

Now I have seen this with two cases of epidurals in my family. Both my sister and sister in law took epidurals whose effects they both still feel as of today. One, they both have persistent back pain (mostly around the injection site), two, my sister in law started having unexplained headaches after delivery. Both of these are long term effects of an epidural which a lot of women suffer from.

One of the possible reasons why this happens in cases of epidurals is that when you can’t feel anything waist down, your ability to push is affected (as mentioned above). You don’t know how hard you have to push so intervention is mostly required. Whether it is inducing labor augmentation hormone-like Pitocin or using forceps or vacuum during child-birth, anything can be expected with an epidural.

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Because epidural interferes with oxytocin, the milk let-down is greatly affected, especially in the initial stages of breastfeeding. Not only that, but oxytocin is also responsible for bonding between mothers and babies so it affects that as well. Breastfeeding, as it is, is a difficult task initially, so when you have issues with milk let-down, this might discourage new mothers to breastfeed their infants. However, a case in point is that long term effects of breastfeeding with epidurals are not there.

One of the things that many mothers don’t appreciate about epidurals is that their recovery happens much slower than if they had not had epidural. Since epidurals have higher chances of episiotomy that means your time in bed is extended.

So these are some of the points to consider when having an epidural. However, all is not bad about it. We’ll be talking about some of the amazing things epidurals can do in our next post.

Let us know about your experience of getting epidural in the comments.