Deaconess adds laughing gas as pain management option during labor

Women giving birth at Deaconess Hospital now have a new option for pain management: laughing gas.

The gas, also known as nitrous oxide, is a less invasive – and less expensive – option than epidural anesthesia, though patients can opt to receive both.

“The mantra is your baby, your way,” said Rockwood spokesman Kevin Maloney.

During labor, women can self-administer the gas during contractions, breathing in to help relieve pain and anxiety. The drug is patient-controlled, so women can use it as needed during labor. It’s also non-narcotic and doesn’t linger in the body.

With anesthesia, “you can feel a little bit loopy or out of it for a couple of hours,” said Tara Tveit, the interim manager of women’s services at Deaconess. “Nitrous oxide is out of your system in a couple of breaths.”

For women who want to remain awake and alert during birth but still want pain relief, nitrous can be a useful option.

Nitrous is much more commonly used in Canada, Australia and Western Europe, but is just starting to make inroads in the U.S., according to the National Institutes for Health. Deaconess is the first hospital in Spokane to offer it.

Tveit said it’s reflective of a larger shift toward giving laboring women more holistic and less invasive options for delivery.

“Deaconess is very much about what options we can offer moms,” she said.

If a patient is receiving nitrous and feels it’s not adequate, they can still opt to receive an epidural.

The hospital started offering nitrous last October. Tveit said demand has grown quickly as people have learned about the option. Deaconess doesn’t charge patients extra for using nitrous, though receiving anesthesia like an epidural does have an extra cost.