Epidurals and Breastfeeding
A slide from Sarah Buckley’s lecture on Epidurals: Impact on Mother and Baby (part of the Gentle Birth: The Science and the Wisdom series):
At the end of her What Would Mammals Do? presentation, the internationally renowned lactation consultant Diane Wiessinger stated: “For the past 30 years, I’ve been looking at the wrong end of the mother!”. Here’s what Diane had to say after participating in Sarah Buckley’s class on epidurals: “I’m an IBCLC. But I’m more and more in awe of the effect the birth has on breastfeeding, bonding, and the future well-being of both mothers and babies. Sarah Buckley is presenting a knock-your-socks-off 6-part series on the effect of birth interventions. I’m oh-so-glad I’m seeing them all. The one on epidurals gives us the science behind our suspicions.”
We would make so much more progress on both the birth and lactation fronts if we worked together. What will it take?
May 21st, 2008 at 6:07 pm
What is frightening to me about this is the following from the abstract:
“CONCLUSIONS: Among women who breast-fed previously, those who were randomly assigned to receive high-dose labor epidural fentanyl were more likely to have stopped breast-feeding 6 weeks postpartum than woman who were randomly assigned to receive less fentanyl or no fentanyl.”
I gather they can do this but it seems unethical to me to be potentially (and actually) sabotaging an infant’s right to be breastfed by randomly assigning previously breastfeeding mothers who requested labor analgesia and planned to breastfeed to receive “intermediate†or high doses of fentanyl in labor with the suspicion (or foreknowledge, based on previous studies or extensive clinical experience) that it affects breastfeeding success! Were the mothers fully informed about the possible consequences that they might have problems with, or be unable to establish, breastfeeding? When they complete the documents for research involving human subjects, do they include the baby in their considerations?!
Claire Winstone