Anatomy and PhysiologyAnesthesia/ EpiduralBy Chelsea Richardson

AnesthesiaAnesthesia controls pain during surgery or other medical

procedures. Like giving birth. It includes using medicines to keep people comfortable. It can also help control breathing, blood pressure, blood flow, and heart rate and rhythm, when needed.Anesthesia may be used1. Relax you.

2. Block pain.

3. Make you sleepy or forgetful.

4. Make you unconscious for your surgery.

Types of Anesthesia Regional anesthesia blocks pain to a

larger part of your body. It blocks pain in the part of the body supplied by the nerve. Nerve blocks are most often used for procedures on certain body parts.

hands arms feet legs face

Epidural and spinal anesthesia. This is a shot of anesthetic near the spinal cord and the nerves that connect to it. It blocks pain from an entire region of the body. belly hips legs

Types of Anesthesia Local anesthesia numbs

a small part of the body. You get a shot of medicine directly into the area that will need anesthesia to block the pain.

General anesthesia affects the brain and the entire body.

Epidural’s PastThere were some problems with pain

relief. For instance, the epidural anesthetic (in which numbing agents are squirted by a needle around the tissues of the spine for absorption leading to relief Some patients were "walloped" with numbing effects so extreme that they felt dead from the chest down, while others received spotty or delayed relief.

Types of Epidural in Past Spinal anesthetic: the medicine bathed the nerves

directly. Although this complication was addressed well, for a hospital was sensitive to this event and ready to act, still it wasn't the stuff of pleasant memories.

Narcotics. Given by IV, narcotics acted centrally on the brain to blunt the appreciation for the pain felt. The pain still continued, but the brain was drunk enough to be more accepting of it Since decrease of variability in fetal heart rate is also a sign of fetal distress, this could lead to inaccurate decisions about the need for a C-section.

Local blocks. The Pudendal nerve block was useful in numbing the area around the vagina and rectum, but it was uncomfortable to receive and could be incomplete, which wasn't known until the moment it was most needed. The local injection, just at the site of an episiotomy or tear, was extremely spotty at times.

Types of Epidural in Past Twilight sleep. To be sedated while

giving birth.

Hypnosis. A trend with more romance than practicality?

Nothing. Having no real plan when going into birth

Local blocks. The Pudendal nerve block was useful in numbing the area around the vagina and rectum, but it was uncomfortable to receive and could be incomplete, which wasn't known until the moment it was most needed. The local injection, just at the site of an episiotomy or tear, was extremely spotty at times.

Sourceshttp://www.webmd.com/pain-management/tc/anesthesia-topic-overviewhttp://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/labor_birth/epidural/article/epidurals-pain-free