I Am an Anesthesiologist and I Encourage You to Give Birth Without an Epidural

A women should make the choice that is best for her. Do your research. Ask questions. Find out the facts.

If delivering without an epidural is what you deem best for you then I encourage you to proceed without one. That being said, if you choose to get an epidural you should be aware of two things: (i) in most cases, epidurals are very effective at controlling pain during labour & delivery, and (ii) statistically speaking, epidurals are very safe, with the chance of a significant negative outcome being very low.

The "medical" information on this website is terribly misleading, if not inaccurate ("The anesthetics used are still derived from cocaine."??? Are you kidding me??.)

Yes, there are potential side effects with epidurals but serious ones are rare. No practitioner should every suggest that they are perfectly safe. If you don't want a complication from an epidural don't get an epidural. If you don't want to get injured in a car accident don't get into a car. If you don't want to have a complication from pregnancy don't get pregnant.