I visited a friend who delivered a bb gal yesterday. It's her 1st bb, natural delivery without epidual. Bb is 2.8kg. I saw how my SIL suffered when she had a difficult delivery which eventually ended up in a c-section. Before delivery, she had still been very keen to avoid epidural. As a result of the epidural (she had it topped up twice!) and/or c-section, she foud herself very tired, unable to breastfeed during the initial critical bonding moments, and eventually found it impossible to breastfeed when she returned home from the hospital (lack of miilk definately not work stress cos she had 3 months maternity leave, and she had been working from home the entire 3rd trimester and up to now when her son is already over 2 years old). She also had backache after delivery.
Comparing my friend and my SIL's experiences, I'm quite keen to avoid epidural. Would the second or third time moms on this thread have anything to share on this issue? I understnad that diliation at the initial stages is very slow. My friend took 13 hours to diliate from 3cm to 4cm. But only 5 hours to go from 4cm to delivery.
Does anyone know if a long prolonged first stage in labour (early labour) will tire out the mom?
How long did you (second/third time moms) take to dialate up to 4cm? What about from the start of labour to up to 6cm?
Thanks in advance for your input.