I am on the Maternity Care committee at our local hospital, and I hear the
staff members on that committee repeatedly state that they do not push
medication on labouring women, and that their epidural rates are high only
because women insist on having them.

Yet, when I am there as a doula, I see nurses frequently asking "do you want
the epidural yet?" (clear suggestion that she'll get it at some point, why
not now?) or making comments like "it's going to get a lot worse than this,
so you might want to think some more about that epidural." If the mother is
noisy - moaning or crying, as some women do in labour, the nurse will often
come and stand beside her and say "you sound like you're in a lot of pain,
maybe you need the epidural now."

When I was at a birth in another hospital, there were posters on all four
walls of the room called "Getting Your Epidural" that advised mothers that
the epidural was available to all mothers in labour, but that if the
anaesthetists were busy it might take a little time to arrange and so it was
best to request it early, before the pain became unbearable. I went around
and removed them all.

Teresa

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