![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “The study was performed in a specific patient population in one hospital outside of the U.S. While the findings of the study are promising, Wax underscores that more research may be required before the practice can be widely applicable. “Providers and women should be reassured that the benefit of pain relief provided by epidurals in the second stage of labor does not come at the expense of a longer second stage.” “The results suggest that epidurals do not significantly increase the duration of the second stage,” he told Healthline. ![]() Joseph Wax, the chair of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Committee on Obstetric Practice, affirmed the findings, stating that its design “provides clarity.” While there were no significant differences between how women ranked their pain during labor, the study did find that maternal satisfaction for pain relief was lower in the placebo group than in the epidural group.ĭr. Participants, obstetricians, and investigators weren’t aware of who continued to receive the medication and who received placebo.Īpart from labor duration, the study authors also didn’t observe an increased likelihood of intervention during delivery, such as the use of forceps, an episiotomy (a surgical cut between the vagina and anus), or a cesarean delivery.Įven more, after delivery, babies had similar health outcomes irrespective of epidural use. Initially, both groups of women received a low concentration of epidural medication during the first stage of labor, which lasts from onset of labor to when a woman is ready to push.Īs the women progressed to the second stage, half remained on the epidural medication while the other half received a saline placebo. In this study, 400 healthy women who carried their first pregnancies to term were split equally into two groups. It explains why you would expect to see a longer or more difficult labor in women who choose to have epidural.” “Observational trials can’t distinguish how much pain a woman was experiencing before requesting an epidural, or if the labor was difficult, or was a labor with dystocia -all circumstances where women are more likely to request an epidural. “Observational trials can’t answer that, only a randomized controlled trial can,” said Hess. Were epidurals more likely to be used in difficult, longer, more painful labors, or were epidurals the precipitating factor for such a labor? In observational studies, scientists look at historical data and analyze whether two events were related to each other.Įven more, past research presented a classic “chicken or the egg” conundrum. “Primarily, the older studies were observational studies, which gives you an association, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s cause and effect,” he told Healthline. Philip Hess, an anesthesiologist at BIDMC and co-author of this study, explains. RCTs are highly commended for their ability to identify whether a cause-and-effect relationship exists between two events.ĭr. The strength of the study lies in its design, which utilizes a method called a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Researchers say they found no evidence that epidurals actually cause a prolonged second stage of labor. However, a recent study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Nanjing Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital may dispel this widely held belief. ![]()
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