>Some women just can't quite
>get over that hump because of the pain and an epidural can help them do that\
For what it's worth, I have done labor support/doula work for a number of
years now and my experience is that women ask for epriduals when the labor
has been long and they are tired - body, mind, and uterus are tired. When
one is
tired, it is harder to concentrate, harder to get our muscles to do
what we want, we are less co-ordinated etc. etc. If it is a long labor,
there
is also the sense that this will never be over. While one can endure a lot
of pain an ddifficulty knowing that it will end, when you think it will
never end (or at least not inthe foreseeable future) one is mor likely to
want pain medication.
  I agree that the risks of epidurals are rarely described fully although
they are presumably written into the consent form that one must sign
in order to get one. But who is in a position to read that form critically
between contractions.
  I teach about the risks of epiduals to mother and baby when I teach
childbirth classes, including more difficult sucking etc. but I think
that the counter force of everyone's friends and sisters telling them
how wonderful epicurals are make it difficult to be heard.
  We keep trying.
   Naomi Bar-Yam

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New England Complex Systems Institute
http://necsi.org
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