Hi Everyone:
  Here's another thought on this topic which has such an impact on us all.
Just think of all the work we will lose if mothers stop using epidurals
routinely. I would love to let that kind of work go, and pray for the day that
it will happen.
  Someone posted very eloquently and accurately about some of reasons that
women take epidurals and I just wanted to add that the overall unsupportive
atmosphere and environment of most hospitals is enough to raise adrenalin
levels so that endogenous oxytocin is rendered ineffective. Who goes to a
hospital to make love? Or to have a good time? Nobody I know. So how can women
birth well? Just go back and read Niles Newton on this. No animal can birth
easily when it is threatened.
  Women do need something to get through labor. Most healthy, cheapest , and
empowering is the support of someone who cares and who can provide the
necessary guidance and belief for most women to make it through. That is one
of the reasons that doulas are so effective.
   If women don't have that, than they are more vulnerable to something more
technical.  Which usually means drugs because staffing in most places is such
that a nurse has no time to suggest a shower or a walk or a sandwich or give a
massage. There is a such a time pressure also, get the labor over in "x"
number of hours....then expect the baby to immediately latch on and feed well.
Forget it!
  The research shows that women mothered in labor will breastfeed more readily
and mother their babies better. So discussion about labor is certainly
relevant in this forum. This is such a sad topic. :-( Nikki