Labour analgesia: Our records

Childbirth pain is one of the most painful experiences for many women. It is the only pain that does not represent an alarm for the body because it occurs in a healthy organism and has a limited duration. Today we think that pregnant women should experience childbirth with all their physical and psychic abilities so, according to proponents of giving birth painlessly, pain suppression using pharmacological methods would be the basis of a birth humanization. We evaluated the effects of labour analgesia on the outcome of labour and childbirth studying 150 women who had "labour analgesia" and 150 women who had not it (control group). There was a statistically significant prolongation of both stages of labour in the analgesia group. There was not any different regarding other parameters. We also compared epidural analgesia and combined spinal-epi-dural analgesia (CSE). The dilation was prolonged only in the CSE group compared with control. Expulsion period was significantly lower in the control group in comparison to both techniques. No difference was found regarding the time between analgesia administration and childbirth and regarding the delivery mode. There was not a significant influence of the timing of analgesia administration and delivery mode. Analgesia for labour does not interfere significantly on labour and fetal outcome, but facilitates the acceptance of labour as pain-free event.