Nitrous Oxide and Its Use In Childbirth for Pain Relief
Most of the folks who come to my Confident Birthing Childbirth Classes are preparing for a natural childbirth. They hope to avoid the use of pain medications in their births. Those not intending a drug-free birth, are usually hoping to delay the use of pain medications and that means that they would be delaying/avoiding systemic narcotics (administered through an I.V.) and/or the most common pain management used in childbirth, the regional anesthetic: epidural. Avoiding those drugs is most often possible through non-pharmacological means like movement, touch, breathing, intention, and sounding, just to name a few. I have spent my 20+ year career helping women avoid or delay those medications through my classes and my doula services. And while it's still possible for women, whose goal is an unmedicated birth, to achieve that through good...