Why don't you use anesthesia when suturing episiotomy?

Episiotomy is a minimally invasive surgery that some pregnant women will undergo during childbirth. The purpose is to prevent tearing after childbirth, protect the pelvic floor muscles, and ensure the birth of the baby! So, do you need anesthetics for sutures after episiotomy? Why don't you use anesthetics for episiotomy sutures? Let's have a simple understanding of this issue. I hope the following points will be helpful to everyone!

Let’s first look at a pregnant woman’s experience of giving birth to an episiotomy wound: I felt that the stitches were more painful than giving birth. I kept shouting in pain, and the doctor kept saying: It will be healed soon, it will be healed soon! In the end, it took half a day to sew it up! It took about 2 hours, and I could even hear the sound of the cable pulling. Compared with the pain of giving birth, the stitches were like thorns in the flesh! Through this pregnant mother’s simple description, we can see how painful it is to sew the episiotomy wound when giving birth to a baby!

So, pregnant mothers have to bear such great pain when the episiotomy wound is cut. Should they be given anesthesia when the episiotomy wound is cut?

Before the episiotomy, the doctor will give the pregnant woman local anesthesia. When the episiotomy is performed, because it is almost the second half of the entire delivery process, the pregnant woman can hardly feel the pain caused by the episiotomy, but she can clearly feel the feeling of scissors cutting the skin and flesh. In terms of the pain level of the episiotomy, the pain of the episiotomy is really far from anything.

After the episiotomy, the baby was born successfully and entered the wound suturing stage. When suturing, some doctors would give the pregnant woman local anesthesia, but due to the urgency of time, the anesthesia was not deep enough and could not be fully exerted in a short period of time, which was basically no different from not having anesthesia!

The episiotomy wound is divided into three layers when sutured. The innermost layer is controlled by the visceral nerve plexus and is not sensitive to sensory nerves. The outer layer (skin) is controlled by the musculocutaneous nerve, so it is more painful.

Is it effective to use anesthesia during episiotomy?

As this mother often said, "It still hurts after the injection, especially when sewing the outermost layer, I think it hurts more than giving birth. When I was giving birth, I was able to hold back and listen to the midwife's instructions to push hard, but when the stitches were sewn, I screamed for every stitch."

However, most hospitals give anesthesia before episiotomy, and no anesthesia is given when the episiotomy is sutured!