Labor pains are one of the biggest concerns for pregnant moms as they prepare for childbirth. In this episode of The Lab, Daddy Clay and Daddy Brad talk to two OBGYN doctors from the Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, OH about pregnancy and pain management. They discuss different kinds of pain medications, and explain what an anesthesia option such as an epidural does. They also talk about the role of fathers during this part of pregnancy. The dads also talk about their child birth experiences. If you have thoughts about pain relief during natural birth or any labor and delivery stories, share them with us at DadLabs.com. DadLabs Ep. 631 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Brad: Today in The Lab, we're gonna be talking about pain management during labor.
Daddy Clay: For women.
Daddy Brad: Yeah. For women.
Daddy Clay: I just thought I would clarify.
Daddy Brad: Today's epidural is brought to you by BabyBjorn and their brand new BabyBjorn Comfort Carrier, great for bigger babies. BabyBjorn, Oeko-tex certified, safe for your baby.
Daddy Clay: So in order to understand mom's options when it comes to pain management, we spoke to a couple of docs on the leading edge of obstetrical practice at the Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Karen Jaffe: Well, there's a couple of different options and some women come to their childbirth experience wanting no pain management. And so I think for that person, the father's gonna play a big role and trying to get them through what they can as far into labor as they possibly can. A lot of our first time parents come in who have never had a baby and they really have an intent on having a natural childbirth. And I tell them they should absolutely try that. They should come in here with the intent that they should try that and prepare themselves and try to get as much information as they possibly can but to not lock themselves into it, because they really won't know what their story's gonna be like until it unfolds here. There are some things that people can use who are not going to have an epidural in the interim but when those things wear off, they have to realize that they're back to where they started.
Dr. Susan Dumas: There's several different types of pain management that are offered her at Labor and Delivery. From an OB standpoint, there's IV pain medications that the obstetricians order. From an anesthesia perspective, our main pain medication that we offer is an epidural. An epidural basically is when we place a needle in a patient's back, and through that needle, we place a tiny catheter. The catheter stays in the patient's back and the needle comes out. Through that catheter, we inject medication. The medication is a local anesthetic mixed with a narcotic and that runs throughout the whole entire labor until the patients deliver.
Dr. Jaffe: The epidural's taped in place.
Dr. Dumas: So we tape it in place and it's attached to a pump that goes continuously throughout the whole entire labor. We also provide that patient with a button that allows her to give herself extra medication if she needs a little bit more.
Dr. Jaffe: And the fathers like to push that for her.
Dr. Dumas: Epidurals are nice because what they tend to do for the patients in labor is provide pain control without taking away the patient's ability to push. It numbs the patient from about the belly button to around mid-thigh so it gives her pain control in the area where she's feeling her contractions but it still gives her the ability to move her legs. Dad is usually there when we're explaining what epidurals are. We ask them to step outside behind the curtain, so he's there listening during the procedure but he's behind the curtain so he can talk to his wife when we're placing the epidural but he's not physically in the room.
Dr. Jaffe: And that's really more for the safety of the father. They sometimes get nervous when they see those needles. And they go down sometimes. That's not unheard of and then we're dealing with a situation where the father's just fainted and his wife is in the middle of an epidural. Also, most of the fathers are actually happy to step behind the curtain.
Dr. Dumas: I think many patients when they come in and say that they want pure natural child birth are under the assumption that epidurals slow labor and so part of my discussion with them is to try to let them know that that's not really the case. That if they're in the active phase of labor that epidurals don't slow labor.
Dr. Jaffe: From the obstetricians standpoint, we obviously offer patients pain management with things like anti-inflammatories and narcotics. And a lot of times patients and their husbands have concerns about whether they can safely take a narcotic, whether they're gonna breast feed or whatever, and certainly all medications that we prescribe are safe. And even one of the things that sometimes parents don't realize will happen is they come in and they're quite uncomfortable but she's in very early labor and one of the things that we can do is actually give her some pain management to go home with or actually sometimes we keep them in the hospital and we give them morphine to help them sleep. And not the husband, the mother. And everybody sleeps well. And sometimes they wake up in the morning and go home. But most of the time they wake up and they're finally in labor. People are always surprised when we offer that. Morphine, you know, in a pregnant woman. But it works very well for early pain management in an early laboring patient.
Daddy Clay: So, how did your wife go on this one?
Daddy Brad: Epidural all three times.
Daddy Clay: And you guys are cool with that? That was good?
Daddy Brad: Absolutely. You all went naturally though right?
Daddy Clay: Well, not exactly. The first one was emergency C-section. Middle - natural. And that's also known as a v-back by the way. And then our third, epidural, but it was so late, it didn't really count, because he was born like 5 minutes later.
Daddy Brad: Which one did you like the best?
Daddy Clay: Well my wife, definitely the natural childbirth. Me, I'd like a little bit more data on this epidural because it seems like I would probably like that a little better.
Daddy Brad: Yeah.
Daddy Clay: But I don't get any choice.
Daddy Brad: Yeah, you don't get any choice. Her choice. Well, we know that you have thoughts on today's episode. Epidural or not. Go and drop a comment on this video or go to DadLabs.com and join the discussion over there.
Daddy Clay: And we want to thank our sponsor BabyBjorn. Oeko-tex certified, safe for your baby, BabyBjorn. We'll see you next time here in The Lab.