Review: Epidural Without Guilt

Epidural Without Guilt: Childbirth Without Pain aims to offer the reader an alternative perspective on epidurals. It is also super short and has a free Kindle version, so I decided to give it a read. On the plus side, the author does a good job of describing what an epidural is and why they are not harmful to either mother or baby. On the other hand, he’s a bit overly enthusiastic by epidurals — he thinks that every laboring woman should get an epidural as soon as she gets to the hospital.

The thing is the author may be right, for the type of birth that he expects a woman to be having, but he assumes a fairly standardized hospital birth experience which does not involve a lot of movement on the part of the mother. He discusses how walking epidurals don’t completely immobilize the mother — depending on the strength of the epidural, the woman may still be able to walk around and, regardless, should be able to get to the bathroom, change positions occasionally, and feel herself push. However, many birth positions and intermediate coping techniques would be hindered by being attached to a bag on a pole. The author might claim that these coping techniques are unnecessary if the woman isn’t experiencing pain, but the author did not address the point directly.

The other weakness of the book is that the author equates pain and suffering. Unlike the author’s claims most of the materials I read don’t try to make women feel guilty about getting epidurals[1], but they do try to distinguish between the sensation of pain and the mental experience of suffering. If you are suffering, the general opinion seems to be, of course you should get an epidural. But if you’re not experiencing the pain as suffering, you can try these other techniques. Not because the epidural is bad, but because it changes the birth experience in a way that some women don’t want.

This is probably a good book to read if you worry about feeling guilty if you get an epidural. If what you want is a discussion to help you decide for yourself if and when you want an epidural, then this book, with it’s flat recommendations, is not for you.

[1] That said, I don’t read pregnancy forums and the like.