People On TikTok Learned That Epidurals Aren’t Needles

“Labor epidurals take away the pain fibers that come in toward your spine and up to your head without blocking the motor activity and contractions in the uterus. Basically, the nerves from the whole body go out from the spinal cord. But there is an area around the spinal cord, which are membranes that contain fluid — spinal fluid. The nerves pass through this space, which is the epidural space. So, in an epidural, you are introducing a catheter, which is like an IV in a sense, that you’ll inject medicine through which will hit those nerves that are going out from the spine. You’re trying to bathe those nerves in an anesthetic agent to make them numb,” Minkin explained.