>Please repeat after me: "All labor drugs get to the baby." Period. But this isn't enough to convince mothers to avoid them. ::::::sigh:::::: it is so much like convincing parents about the dangers of ABM. I do repeat long and hard that it is better for everyone to avoid medication. We spend the majority of our classes talking about non-pharmacological pain relief methods. However I only have six weeks, including infant care (pity the couples who take the *1* day class) and most feel their lives are to busy to practice outside of class. They *want* their epidural, their doctors *want* the epidurals and many nurses *want* the epidurals. They go to class because it's the thing to do. So that brings me back to my dilemma. Should we encourage mother's to use IV narcotics when they first request pain relief to hopefully get them through the first 5 centimeters w/o the epidural. Jan Riordan's new study shows this sets up a huge increase in breastfeeding problems. Or, do we not mention this option and have a lot of mothers getting epidurals at 2 cm? which then follows an increased risk of a host of other intervention which have their own set of problems. They *will* have their epidural. So, which is the lesser of the two evils? Jessica Mattingly M.Ed. CCE Greater Kansas City *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html