Why do epidurals cause back pain

The most common side effect is hypotension, a drop in maternal blood pressure that could affect the baby; this occurs more with higher doses of medication. Other relatively common and treatable side effects are nausea, which affects roughly 20 to 30 percent of women who receive epidurals; and itching, which affects approximately 30 to 50 percent.

Another possibility is that the mother will develop a fever if an epidural is in place for about six hours or more; this can lead to diagnostic testing and, sometimes, antibiotics for mother and child. A much rarer complication is a "spinal headache" after an epidural: a severe headache following local anesthesia that gets worse upon standing upright.

Other rare risks include infection, bleeding, and nerve damage near where the injection is given. If the drug is accidentally injected into the bloodstream, this can cause breathing to slow or stop, seizures, or even death.

However, Camann says, "most anesthesiologists will go through a whole career and never see a case of these rare complications. Reality : According to Wong, less than 5 percent of women have unrelieved labor pain after receiving an epidural. This can be caused by the baby's position , but sometimes the anesthesiologist simply needs to give more medication. Occasionally, the pain is relieved on only one side of the body, either because the catheter is mispositioned or dislodged or because the mother stays in the same position for too long; this problem is easily remedied.

An increasingly popular option is patient-controlled epidural analgesia PCEA ; the laboring woman can control the amount of pain relief she gets, but overdosing is extremely unlikely. Reality: Epidurals are not instantaneous. They're far more complicated than getting a shot in the butt. So, can an epidural cause lower back pain? Studies have shown that there is no correlation between having an epidural and lower back pain.

These studies show that mothers that did not have an epidural are just as likely to have lower back pain after delivery as mothers that had a epidural. However, in rare cases, an epidural can cause nerve damage.

In this case, there could be lower back pain associated with the epidural, but I believe that in the vast majority of pregnancies, there is another cause for lower back pain after delivery. At this time, the ligaments of the pelvis are under a large amount of stress, which can lead to lower back pain.

After delivery, the pelvic ligaments begin to return to their normal length as the pelvis contracts.

Many times, when the pelvis begins to shrink back to its normal size, the pelvic bones and sacrum, the bone at the base of your spine, become misaligned. Looking for a chiropractor in Seattle Washington? We are nestled in the neighborhood of Ballard. Glacier Chiropractic. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Schedule An Appointment Today! Community, collaboration, and evidence-based information are more valuable than ever.

Take advantage of your member benefits. From fears of permanent back pain to allegations of potential harm to the baby, many women still harbor mistaken beliefs about epidurals. More than 60 percent of women in labor use an epidural, spinal or combined spinal-epidural anesthesia for labor, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. It is becoming increasingly rare to use spinal anesthesia for delivery alone, but combined spinal-epidurals are becoming quite common, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists ASA.

To administer an epidural, a physician anesthesiologist inserts a needle and tiny tube catheter in your lower back and delivers medication to continuously relieve pain below your belly button. Spinal anesthesia is a one-time injection of pain medication. Toledo, an obstetric physician anesthesiologist and assistant professor of anesthesiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, frequently hears concerns and misconceptions about epidurals.

With the ASA, she offers the truth behind some common myths:. Myth: Epidurals can cause permanent back pain or paralysis in the mother.