Having had concerns re recent pain guidelines , the news that NICE' s recommendations now feature sterile water injections for pain relief for childbirth has me flabbergasted. I am lucky, I had straightforward births with minimal pain relief , however I have friends who struggled ( back labour in particular where baby pushes against spine ) What is it about women's pain that encourages this ? Read and weep https://twitter.com/user/status/1707749507570516239
Yeah, but the chance of some contamination issues arising, either in the supply itself or during injection, is definitely not zero. These things happen. On a long enough timeline, they are guaranteed to happen to a significant absolute number of people, even if it's a small proportion. So this means facing potential life-threatening risk for absolutely no possible gain. Hard to imagine a worse lose-lose proposition than this. Why don't they just go straight to shamanism at this point? Burn some herbs, or whatever? Regardless of asthma. With an open flame, next to oxygen tanks. What is even the difference if they care so little about what's true and what isn't that they openly go with make-believe stuff? You can't be professional and science-based at times, and shamanistic at other times. This is truly an either-or thing, science is one of those rare actual all-or-nothing things, there is no mid-way between science and non-science. And yet here we are.
I agree with you @Arnie Pye. I was wise-cracking--the powers that be can avoid the controversy (if there is one) of giving a one-time opiate. Here in the US, opiates are a dirty word. I don't know what the policy is in obstetrics these days.
There is science to it (https://evidencebasedbirth.com/sterile-water-injections-for-pain-relief-during-labor/ has a good explanation). As I now recall, you don't want to give opiates (especially in later stages of labor) because they can suppress the baby's breathing and slow the progress of labor itself, I think.
Interesting re evidence. Cochrane couldn't do a meta analysis as "studies all used different ways of assessing pain. Some of them asked the patient how much pain they felt, others asked the physician how much pain they thought the client was in, and many did not report enough of the pain score data for the Cochrane researchers to really determine the quality of these studies. " But others disagreed and ran one and got significant results .. Stimulating pain to block pain seems to be how TENS works - seemingly the injections are a painful procedure ( to the extent that they are trialling anaesthetic cream - but would that not defeat the purpose?) Significant reduction in ceasarians are noted where this is an option which can only be a good thing.
That would never work - and it amazes me that anyone ever thought it would. For example, some in the medical profession believe that women and children exaggerate for attention, or because they are depressed, or they don't want to go to school or work because they are lazy. And contrary to what some in the medical profession think, some doctors are dreadful at their jobs and couldn't diagnose a broken leg with the bone sticking out, so how could they be trusted to say how much pain someone is in?
Yes, that's exactly what struck me too. Some people are more vocal than others, ( does this mean less pain experienced?) some people are " too brave " , some are told to " be brave" . Nuts
Doctors have also been found to underestimate the pain of black people. https://www.aamc.org/news/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain
