Do epidurals provide effective pain management during labor?
• In any regional anasthetic, when the right amount of the right drug is injected in the right place, it usually will eventually work and provide good pain relief. The problem areas are usually putting the drug in the right place and waiting long enough for it to work. In some cases, the correct spot is easy to identify (e.g. spinal anaesthesia) while, in other cases (e.g. epidural, sciatic nerve block), it is harder to find the correct spot. Most blocks take 5-20 minutes to work. One of the worst potential side effects though of the epidural is *it may not work or may provide spotty relief*. This can be doubly devestating for a woman who has planned and counted on the relief of epidural analgesia in her labor. Not only is she shocked by not being able to get medicinal pain relief, she is completely unprepared to deal with a natural childbirth.
