What are the risks of having an epidural?
Regarding the risks of an epidural – the most common occurrences are a slight drop in the womans blood pressure (which can always be rapidly and safely corrected); a feeling of itchiness, which is a common side effect of the drug fentanyl which is added to many epidurals – it is NOT an allergic reaction; and the possibility of a headache a day or so after the delivery – the headache occurs roughly 1% of the time. In some women, particularly if this is the first labor and the length of labor is long, a small elevation in temperature may occur. It is common to have back pain after childbirth. This is something that will be experienced by roughly half of women who give birth. All the recent studies indicate that back pain occurs just as frequently in women who have had epidurals as those who have not. While it is possible to have some tenderness for a day or a few days at the site where the epidural is inserted, long-term backache is quite clearly a frequent occurrence related to the act
