PCEA: Self-Administered Anesthesia During Childbirth

Childbirth is often a source of great anxiety to women who are pregnant. If you are expecting a baby, it is important to understand the variety of pain management options made available during labor and delivery. With education and communication with your obstetrician, or midwife, you can become better prepared for the childbirth experience and, ultimately, reduce your anxiety during pregnancy.

While women, at one time, had few pain management options during childbirth, in the last several decades the use of systemic anesthesia and regional anesthesia became increasingly more popular. In more recent years, however, pregnant women have begun to move away from these forms of anesthesia options, opting for neuraxial techniques for pain relief.

If you are considering your pain management options during labor and delivery, it is important to discuss the use of neuraxial pain relief with your obstetrician. While many physicians still recommend the dense regional blocks associated with epidural during childbirth, there are some physicians who are considering more modern approaches to healthcare. In fact, the control over pain management is oftentimes given to the mother with far greater outcomes.

While pain associated with childbirth can be quite intense, when a woman feels as if she is in control of the pain, oftentimes, the outcome can be vastly improved. Using a procedure known as PCEA, or patient-controlled epidural analgesia, a woman is given control over the use of analgesia during labor and delivery and guided by the support of a perinatal nurse.

Self-administering pain relief is considered a monotherapy. That is to say, if the pain relief technique is not successful for you, it may not be an option to consider other pain relief techniques, such as a deep tissue epidural, in its place. For this reason, if you are considering PCEA as part of your pain relief during childbirth, you may want to consider supportive services such as the use of a labor and delivery coach, or even take relaxation therapy classes designed to promote relaxation during labor.