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.

In:
• Health
• Pregnancy
• United Kingdom

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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