Nitrous oxide birth
Laughing gas for childbirth: 5 FAQ
Speaking of Health
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- Obstetrics and Gynecology
When you think of laughing gas, the first image that comes to mind likely is someone hysterically laughing. Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, has been making a comeback as a pain-relief option for women during childbirth. While the option is safe for most women, many rumors surround its use.
Here are the answers to 5 common questions about nitrous oxide as a pain relief option for labor:
1. Why are more women turning to laughing gas for managing childbirth pain?
Women want more options for managing pain during labor and delivery. Nitrous oxide is self-administered, so you feel more control over pain relief.
Nitrous oxide does not limit mobility, slow labor or cause significant risk to the baby. It has a quick onset after it is inhaled and leaves the system quickly once its use is discontinued.
Nitrous oxide will not eliminate pain, but it can dull pain and lessen anxiety. It's a good option for women who are prone to anxiety or want the ability to move around during labor.
2. Does laughing gas make you laugh like crazy?
Contrary to its name, laughing gas does not make you laugh like crazy. The gas slows the nervous system, which makes you feel less inhibited. It also can create a sense of well-being or euphoria. This combination can make you feel gigglier than usually, but most don't laugh hysterically.
Nitrous oxide may make you feel groggy or nauseous, but those potential side effects usually go away within a few minutes.
3. What are some of the benefits of using laughing gas over other pain relief methods?
Laughing gas is the least expensive pain relief option available and has little effect on the baby. It can be used continuously, and it allows you to walk during labor.
Laughing gas also is less invasive than an epidural. If you choose a different pain management option, nitrous oxide can be stopped at any time.
You can safely breastfeed after delivery even if you used laughing gas.
4. Who benefits from using laughing gas?
Laughing gas is a good option if you tend to feel anxious. If you have been diagnosed with anxiety, are nervous around needles, scared of being in hospitals or have a hard time relaxing and releasing tension, it may be for you.
It also is an option to consider if you wanted to avoid an epidural and narcotic pain medication, or it's too early or late for an epidural.
5. How is laughing gas administered?
You give yourself laughing gas by holding a small mask to your mouth to inhale the gas. It takes effect within a minute. Once the mask is removed, the effects of nitrous oxide quickly wear off. Some women prefer to use nitrous oxide during contractions, and others prefer to use it to help relax between contractions. Your health care team will teach you how to use it.
Nitrous oxide is a good option if you are looking for a noninvasive pain reliever that you can control.
Knowing the available options will help you choose an effective pain relief method for labor and delivery.
Learn more about easing pain with nitrous oxide and the importance of having a birth plan.
Christina Spencer, D.O., is an OB-GYN in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
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Laughing gas helpful for labor pain, safe for baby, but ultimately most women switched to an epidural, study shows
ORLANDO, Fla.
– Women report being very satisfied with nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to manage labor pain, experiencing no adverse side effects to the baby, although over half of the women ultimately opted for an epidural or other pain management technique, suggests a study being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2019 annual meeting.
“Our research is one of the first large retrospective studies done in the U.S., in five large university hospitals, on the use of nitrous oxide in the labor and delivery unit,” said Barbara Orlando, M.D, one of the lead authors of the study and assistant professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. “Although nitrous oxide did not prevent women in labor from requesting other pain management options like an epidural, we received positive feedback from patients who said they like laughing gas as an option to manage their pain.”
There are a variety of options available for women to manage labor pain, ranging from epidurals and medications delivered intravenously, to complementary methods including massage, deep breathing and nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide is more commonly used in Europe and Australia to manage labor pain, but has recently gained popularity in the U.S. It is an inhaled anesthetic gas that may help reduce anxiety and make patients less aware of pain, but does not eliminate it. Conversely, epidural anesthesia is the most common type of pain relief used during labor and blocks pain in the lower part of the body, allowing the laboring mother to be awake and alert throughout delivery.
Researchers reviewed the medical records of 1,958 women who used nitrous oxide during labor between March 2016 and March 2018. The average age of the patients was 28 years old. Researchers collected: patient demographics; patient satisfaction; conversion rate to alternate pain management options, including epidurals; and Apgar score, which ranges from 0 to 10 (7 to 10 is considered reassuring) and is used to assess a newborn’s overall condition and health 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth. The authors note only 850 patients included in the study had patient satisfaction information available.
The mean patient satisfaction rate for nitrous oxide use was 7.4 (on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being high). Ultimately, 68.9% of women who used nitrous oxide switched to another pain management technique, with the majority (92%) opting for an epidural. Nitrous oxide was found to be safe for the newborns, whose Apgar scores averaged 8 and 9 at 1 and 5 minutes, respectively.
“Nitrous oxide is easy for patients to use, relatively inexpensive, and will attract more patients looking for a birthing center, or more homelike type of delivery experience,” said Dr. Orlando. “The high patient satisfaction rate and safety profile that we found should motivate other institutions nationwide to offer nitrous oxide as a pain management option to women in labor.”
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS
Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific society with more than 53,000 members organized to raise and maintain the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology.
ASA is committed to ensuring physician anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of patients before, during and after surgery to provide the highest quality and safest care every patient deserves.
For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists online at asahq.org. To learn more about the role physician anesthesiologists play in ensuring patient safety, visit asahq.org/WhenSecondsCount. Join the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2019 social conversation today. Like ASA on Facebook, follow ASALifeline on Twitter and use the hashtag #ANES19.
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Way to accelerate the decomposition of nitrous oxide
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NUST MISIS scientists have found a way to speed up decomposition nitrous oxide - a by-product of the chemical and agricultural industries - a gas that is very harmful to the ozone layer.
Increase efficiency process was possible thanks to a new method of catalyst synthesis decomposition. This will allow faster separation of nitrous oxide into safe ingredients. Development article published at Journal of the American Ceramic Society .
Nitrous oxide, N 2 O, known to many as “laughing” or “sleeping” gas is actually extremely harmful compound. It does not cause direct damage to a person, but aggressively affects the earth's ozone layer. In comparison, carbon dioxide gas, SO 2 , is also considered unfavorable for atmosphere with a compound, but nitrous oxide has the potential impact on global warming by about 310 times above. No. 2 O Widely used in food industry; it is also used in jet engines and internal combustion engines. In addition, nitrous oxide is a by-product of a number of processes, for example, decomposition of fertilizers and production of adipic and nitric acids, which are used in the food industry, jewelry, the production of dyes.
NUST MISIS scientists have found a way to speed up decomposition of N 2 O, having improved the conditions production of catalyst - ferrite lanthanum LaFeO 3. Often given inorganic the compound is obtained as a result of hydrothermal synthesis, which lasts from 48 hours to several days. Team Laboratory of Nanochemistry and Ecology of NUST MISIS under the direction of Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor Leonid Kustova took a different approach: the catalyst was synthesized in a microwave unit. New The method gave a positive result on several parameters at once.
First, the synthesis process of LaFeO 3 has decreased 16 times - up to three hours in total - with the same output of the final product. Second, synthesized under microwave conditions particles LaFeO 3 finer than the particles obtained with thermal heating under the same conditions. Carrying out the reaction at microwave radiation also leads to an increase in the specific sample surface and the amount of surface oxygen.
“If we simplify it very much, then we can imagine that for one unit mass of the catalyst obtained by the thermal method, there will be one cubic particle. However, if get the catalyst by the microwave method developed by us, then the same unit of mass will account for 3–4 cubic particles. In total, this gives a larger area surfaces with which nitrous oxide can react, - comments the main author of the work, Leading Engineer, Laboratory of Nanochemistry and Ecology, National University of Science and Technology MISIS Egor Kostyukhin.
The catalyst obtained under microwave conditions is completely decomposes nitrous oxide already at 700°C, while the catalyst obtained by thermal heating, requires much more temperature: at 700 ºC, only about 60 % N 2 O. That is, the catalyst obtained by the new method, works faster and more efficiently than its predecessor.
Thus, scientists were able not only to speed up the process by 16 times catalyst synthesis, but also significantly improve its catalytic properties.
The results may find their potential application in the chemical industry, with processing of off-gases from the production of adipic and nitric acids.
NUST MISIS Press Office
Author NUST MISIS Press Service
nitrous oxide catalyst lanthanum ferrite
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How laughing gas works
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A group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) investigated the effect on humans of nitrous oxide, better known as a "laughing gas" - it began to be used as an anesthetic remedy as early as the beginning of the 19th century, but until now the exact mechanism of its action remained unexplored. Researchers have identified some characteristic changes in brain function that occur after drug administration. 9 talks about the research results0052 NeuroScientistNews .
Dr. Emery Brown began recording EEGs with consent of their patients since 2012.
Within three minutes after the injection anesthetic dose of nitrous oxide electroencephalogram (EEG) registers wide-amplitude slow delta waves over the entire surface of the anterior part of the brain. Usually this picture observed during deep sleep. But the waves caused "laughing gas", were somewhat more powerful, and twice as long.
Doctors often explain general anesthesia to patients as "immersion in sleep", although technically general anesthesia is reversible artificial coma, in which a person is immersed under exposure to specific drugs. This state lasts until as long as the flow of anesthetics into the body does not stop. A person comes out of anesthesia, completely forgetting the time spent on the operating table.
Doctors usually administer nitrous oxide towards the end of surgery to managed to neutralize the action of more powerful ethereal anesthetics, or used in combination with them to reduce dose first.
Dr. Brown believes that EEG tracking should be used for opportunities for all anesthesiologists to monitor the condition of their patients.
This allows you to apply the optimal dose of drugs, and also minimize the possibility of maintaining sensitivity patient under anesthesia.
Presumably, if in any way it will be possible maintain the clear, slow waves produced by nitrous oxide in over an extended period of time, this substance would become an excellent anesthetic, from the effects of which patients retreated would be much easier.
It remains a mystery why slow delta waves are observed approximately only the first three minutes after the administration of the drug. Dr. Brown believes that perhaps there is a rapid habituation or development of insensitivity to action "laughing gas". He thinks nitrous oxide can block wakefulness signals from the brainstem. AT natural state, when certain cells of the thalamus and cortex brain are not inhibited by nitrous oxide, they usually get excitatory signals from the inner regions of the brain. Registration slow signals during wakefulness may indicate nervous disease.
Previous studies have been done using lower doses of nitrous oxide when there is a sedative, relaxing effect caused by the appearance of beta waves in the human brain.
Emery Brown and his team continue to study change electrical waves produced by the human brain exposure to various anesthetics.
Formerly portal Scientific Russia wrote about experience with the use of "laughing gas" as a cure for depression.
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Information provided by the Information Agency "Scientific Russia". Mass media registration certificate: IA No. ФС77-62580, issued Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications on July 31, 2015.
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