[lettie]

Being mobile is the best way to be, for our ladies who use gas and air, they can still be mobile and are pretty much encouraged to be, unless there is a problem where we need to monitor the baby, growth retardation for example. We even let them use entonox (gas and air) in the pool, and haven't drowned anybody yet, but if they are in the pool they are not allowed narcotic drugs, as they take away control and make you drowsy.
The epidural, on the other hand, completely takes away mobility, drops maternal blood pressure (and in doing so affects the baby's heartrate) so the mother needs to be on a monitor throughout, and needs close supervision. Hence the furore in the media re. shortage of Midwives, saying that procedures such as epidural are still being done when we haven't enough midwives to look after them. As far as I'm concerned, this is completely true, so if anyone out there fancies doing their Midwifery training, drop me a message, and I'll tell you how to go about getting in. It's currently a 4 year degree course. When I trained, I had to do 3 years nurse training and then a further 18months to specialise in midwifery