Pethidine
Pethidine is a painkiller and muscle relaxant drug, which is a synthetic form of morphine.
Pethidine helps you relax, but can make you very sleepy and/or dizzy. Pethidine comes in pill and injectable forms. A midwife can prescribe and administer injections of the drug for pain relief during labour.
As it can make you feel nauseous, pethidine is sometimes combined with an anti-emetic (a drug to stop you being sick).
Other disadvantages are that pethidine may slow down labour, crosses the placenta to affect your baby's breathing, while breastfeeding is less likely to be successful if you have pethidine during labour.
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