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If your due date is near, you may have a birth plan in place. However, labor can slow or stop unexpectedly, requiring changes to that plan. Labor augmentation is used to strengthen contractions and move labor along when progress has stalled. You can opt out of an epidural during labor augmentation but having one may ease the process. Anxiety, pain and exhaustion can all slow labor progress, and an epidural can help you relax enough to allow labor to progress on its own, said Tania Lopez, CNM, a certified nurse-midwife at Pediatrix® OB Hospitalists of Texas. It also lets you rest before the second stage of labor, which requires significant energy for pushing. Lopez noted labor augmentation usually makes contractions sharper, more frequent and more intense overall. “The labor is more intense, but everything may be over more quickly,” she explained.
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