In some circumstances medication is necessary. When a woman is showing signs of distress managing a natural labour and the baby is responding negatively to her emotions then sometimes the best way to help her calm down is through medication. The concept of informed choice is knowing when to make the decision to use medications as opposed to using a natural approach to dealing with your circumstances at the time.
When you are not in control you tend to accept what is being told to you by your caregivers and may end up regretting the process in hindsight.
Being present and mindful during labour is a key step in the yoga birthing pathway. When we use our yogic breathing and posture movement we stay awake to our birth story. The pain may be intense but our minds are clear of outside influence. We know what our bodies need and when to make the right call for medicated assistance. Receiving an epidural in labour does not mean failure in birth. It's the emotions after the epidural that are important in managing. The best way to be in control of those emotions is to be educated beforehand. When is an epidural necessary, how will an epidural affect your labour time, how does it affect the baby, what is the recovery time for an epidural, how will pushing time be affected... by asking yourself these questions before labour begins you develop an informational baseline for the decisions your faced with during labour. When the time comes and you feel that your contractions have put you between a rock and a hard spot, you can come back to your baseline of information and decide which path to take.
