They were started around a decade ago, but painless deliveries still do not have many takers in Chandigarh.

Obstetricians at PGI say painless deliveries are “caught in the rigmarole of unfounded myths and lack of awareness”. Such deliveries, they add, have no side effects.

Data from the PGI, which started painless deliveries ten years ago, shows that not even 5 per cent patients opted for such deliveries in the last five years. Over 70 per cent of the deliveries, according to the data, were normal deliveries.

“Painless deliveries are safe if there is a trained team of anesthetists to assist the patient. PGI certainly has all facilities, but women require a lot of counselling and motivation to go for it, as there are many myths attached with it,” Prof Jyotsna Wig, head of the Department of Anesthesia, says. “We’re trying to strengthen our counselling to get more response for painless deliveries.”

Of the total 4,517 deliveries at PGI in 2008, only 100 to 120 were painless. This number has remained static since 2004.

Doctors at PGI blame the profile of patients coming to the hospital and the myths attached with painless deliveries for this flat trend.

“As a government referral hospital, we get cases which are either very complicated or from lower strata of the society,” Dr Kajal Jain of PGI says. “Lack of awareness is also a big deciding factor. And in most cases, it is very difficult to make women shed their myths.”

Prof Wig adds, “False notions of developing back ache after a painless delivery or that they can harm the child do not have any scientific basis.”

... contd.