Can laughing gas be used during labor instead of an epidural?

There are three stages during labor and the first stage is the time while a mom is dilating to 10. The second stage is from the time a mother is 10 centimeters until the time the baby is born, so basically the pushing time. The third stage is from delivery of the baby to the delivery of the placenta. You had a specific question about the second stage, about pushing, and if laughing gas is helpful. In order to answer your question I want to talk a little bit about the background of pushing. There is a lot that goes into it. If it's your first baby you're likely to push for one to two hours even though you might be able to see just a small amount of your baby's head when you start the process. It's similar to a basket weave of elastics, and imagine that a bowling bowl is sitting on top of that. You can see that a lot of weight and pressure would have to be applied on those elastics until eventually they're able to stretch and the bowling ball can come through. That's exactly what is happening with the baby's head and the muscles on your pelvic floor. They have to be stretched in order for the baby to fit through the birth canal. The baby has already descended quite a bit into the pelvis, in addition to the actual pushing when you have a contraction helps to add that pressure so the baby can fit. The best way for the stretching to occur is for the mother to push three times with each contraction using the force of the contraction and her pushing to stretch the tissues and get the baby out. You push for ten seconds during each push and you do this three times with each contraction every two to three minutes for one to two hours. You can see how this can be very, very exhausting. If you're desiring an un-medicated delivery during this time you have immense amounts of pressure and that urge to push is huge. That's actually a little bit beneficial because when you feel that contraction and that urge to push you're able to push in the right place and push for effectively than some women who have an epidural when they don't really feel where to push. Although there are benefits to having an epidural when you push as well because at the very end when the doctor tells you to just do little slow puffy pushes you're able to control it if you have an epidural, whereas if you don't you're not able to control that and the likelihood of you tearing is way greater. From all the labors I've observed and from having babies myself, the pushing stage is very difficult and can be very painful. It's exhausting. Laughing gas for this stage of labor is not typically used in practice right now. I have heard of some areas where it's being experimented upon. The problem with laughing gas is this goes into your blood stream and this can affect your baby. The studies are being done to figure out what effect it's having on the baby because when the baby is born we want them to come out screaming so that we don't have to entice them to cry or to scream because that's going to be best for them. We want them to come out and scream and get the circulation going through their body, that's what is best for them. Typically speaking we use two things as far as pain goes for labor. You can have IV pain medication, although that does affect your baby so we try to hold off if we think you're going to deliver in the next hour or two. There are also epidurals. The beauty of an epidural and your baby doesn't know you have it; it doesn't affect them at all. The safest form of pain control for your baby is actually an epidural. If you plan on not wanting to use any sort of anesthesia or pain medication during your labor it's best to start preparing now. If you decide the day before you go into labor that you want to do it un-medicated it's like deciding today that I'm going to run a marathon tomorrow, it's not likely to go well. If you practice basic breathing and relaxation techniques and look into things like hypnobirthing, Lamaze, there are many different things out there you can study that help you with an un-medicated delivery. The bottom line is you have to be prepared. That preparation will also help you during the pushing stage. Of course the staff at the hospital will be there to help you as well. Good luck with everything and if you have any other questions in the future feel free to ask them on our Facebook page at Facebook.com/IntermountainMoms and recommend us to your friends and family too.