Hi everyone in today's podcast we're going to talk about using sterile water

injections for pain relief during labor.

Welcome to the Evidence-Based Birth Podcast. My name is Rebecca Decker and I'm a nurse

with my PhD and the founder of Evidence Based Birth. Join me each week as we

work together to get evidence-based information

into the hands of families and professionals across the world.

As a reminder, this information is not medical advice.

See Eviebirth.com.com for more details.

Hi everyone, welcome to the Evidence Based Birth Podcast.

Today we're going to cover sterile water injections for pain management during labor.

This is a continuation of our pain management series and today we're going to talk about how you can

use sterile water injections for back labor. So it's estimated that about

30% of people in labor experience intense slower back pain, commonly called

back labor. A lot of people think that back labor is associated with the baby being in a posterior or sunny side up position.

However, there's not a lot of research evidence that truly links the baby's position with where you feel your pain or with back labor.

It's possible that back pain might be related to fetal position, but it's also that it might be something called referred pain when you're

experiencing pain in one part of the body, but for some reason you feel it in

another part of the body. Women have described back labor as extreme pressure or intense pain in a specific area of the lower back.

Sometimes the pain might even persist during the normally painless rest periods in between contractions.

Researchers think that experiencing back labor leads to a higher rate of needing pain

medications during labor such as needing an epidural.

So what is a sterile water injection and why might

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