A co-worker once told me that "if I don't get my teeth without anesthesia, I'm not going to give birth without her." Another told me that I wanted to give birth as before, without anesthesia and naturally. Another, more frightened than the previous ones, told me that if I could I would choose total anesthesia and caesarean section.
Today there are, generalizing a little, three ways of giving birth: by natural, vaginal and epidural birth, instrumentalized delivery, which is vaginal, but with anesthesia and perhaps the use of instruments to help in the exit of the baby and cesarean delivery, with epidural anesthesia. A survey conducted in Granada seems to envision that the birth that most satisfies mothers is vaginal without epidural, and now we talk about it, but as there are different opinions, we ask you: What type of delivery would you feel most satisfied with?
Study Data
The study to which I mention has been carried out by the Department of Nursing of the University of Granada, the San Cecilio University Hospital of Granada, the University of Medical Sciences of Cienfuegos (Cuba) and the Foundation for Health Research of Eastern Andalusia (FIBAO ).
At they interviewed 60 mothers to know their opinion regarding childbirth and breastfeeding the day after giving birth and then at 14 days. Finally, to talk about feeding the baby, they were asked again 3 months after giving birth.
When asked about the satisfaction of the birth they had lived, those who reported being happier with the process were those who had a vaginal delivery without epidural. Of the 16 cases that had this type of delivery, 11 said they were satisfied, which is equivalent to 86.8%. Women who had a vaginal delivery with epidural were satisfied in 47.9% (9 of 19 cases), 26.3% not satisfied (5 of 19 cases). Finally, when the delivery was by caesarean section, only 36% of women who gave birth in this way explained being satisfied (9 of 25), with 36% also showing dissatisfaction with the process.
Strange data?
I have no doubt if the results of this part of the study can be extrapolated to the rest of the population of our country. A priori I would say that every woman would wish a quick delivery with a quick recovery, that is, a vaginal delivery without epidural. However, there are many who would add the "and that does not hurt much", for which we should add the epidural, probably (or a little preparation by the mother to know how to control and manage pain during contractions and childbirth without the use of anesthesia). However, the epidural group seems not to be as happy as one would expect.
In addition, we are talking about only 60 births, and the results may not be reflecting reality. In fact, if you look at the numbers you will see that of all births 41.67% were caesarean section, 31.67% vaginal with epidural and 26.67% vaginal. Come on, that 4 out of 10 deliveries were by caesarean section, and it is not a representative number of the population, since currently the percentage of caesarean sections in Spain should be around 21-23%. Perhaps in that hospital the rate of cesarean deliveries is usually so high and perhaps the users, aware of it, express their discomfort in reference to these rates by reporting their nonconformity with the process.
So without paying much attention to the data, since I don't know how reliable they are: Are you satisfied with your delivery? How was the delivery?
