Getting an epidural during labor could help reduce complications after birth, study says
BOSTON - New research finds getting an epidural during labor could help reduce the risk of complications.
Maternal mortality is on the rise across all racial and ethnic groups, and a new study in the BMJ suggests epidural anesthesia might help. Researchers in the U.K. analyzed data on more than half a million women in labor.
They found that those who received an epidural were 35 percent less likely to have severe, potentially life-threatening complications such as heart attack, stroke, or hysterectomy in the first few weeks after birth.
The benefit was even greater in patients delivering prematurely or those with risk factors such as morbid obesity.
They say perhaps patients and their unborn babies can be monitored more easily with epidurals, and patients undergo less physiological stress.
The researchers say laboring moms, especially those at risk, should have easy access to epidural pain management.