Ever wondered what percentage of labouring women in SJMC have an epidural to relieve their labour pains?
Well wonder no more. Cause after much hard work (no kidding), I've got the answer for you.
Summary of the epidural rates
Chart of the epidural rates
The nitty-gritty of it all, for those who love to get deep into the mud. I'm afraid that even with all my hard work, some of the data is missing. Never mind, something is better than nothing.
As you can see, there is a general increase in the epidural rates, but since 1993, the rate seems to have plateaued out at about 15.5 %.
Note the following:-
The total deliveries includes both vaginal and operative deliveries.
The epidurals only includes those performed for pain relief during labour. It does not include those performed purely for Caesarean sections.
Therefore, the more appropriate rate to look at would be the epidural rate as a percentage of the deliveries excluding the number of elective Caesarean sections.
Remember that some of those going for emergency Caesarean sections would have had an epidural performed prior to going for their operations.
As I pointed out, the data is incomplete in some areas and, very occasionally, the data may even be in error because the handwriting was that bad.