Anyone any experience with remifentanil?

[Eloquentia]

Hello mama warriors! I wonder if any of you has experience of giving birth using remifentanil as pain relief? I have an allergy to lidocaine so it looks like epidurals are not recommended due to using a drug from the same family. A consultant anaesthesiologist briefly explained the pros and cons of remifentanil as an alternative but I would really benefit from your personal experience on side effects for mum and for baby, if any?

[Zeebee14]

I used remifentinol. I laboured all night with no pain relief and when I got to 9cm (and shocked the midwives I’d dialated that much so quickly) I asked for pain relief and got remi.

It takes a while to set up as they need to put a drip in your hand. You hold a kind of switch in your hand that has a button and a light. When the light is green you can press the button to trigger the remi to go through the drip in your hand. It takes 30 seconds to work but works very well. I loved it. The reason you have to wait for the green light is so that you are not able to take too much of it.

The difficulty with it is getting the timing right because you are supposed to press the button at the very start of the contraction so that when it peaks, the remi has had the 30 seconds to work. When you get this right it’s wonderful and gave me such relief and a rest.

It doesn’t stay in your blood system for very long so doesn’t pass to your baby.

After a few hours I ended up pressing the button whenever the light was green rather than at the start of a contraction, because the rest and pain relief was so good, but the midwife ended taking it away from me towards the end as I wasn’t pushing hard enough. So I did the last few hours of birth with no pain relief.

Overall I would use remi again if I needed to. There is a skill to learn so you need to keep your brain switched on so you can press the button at the right time. My baby was fine and alert with no effects of remi whatsoever.

Hope this helps. X

[Eloquentia in reply to Zeebee14]

This is super helpful and most reassuring, thank you so much! I hope you and your little one are doing well xx