Truth is labour pain depends on your pain threshold. If you can hold pain, go natural, take the gas mask or otherwise epidural is there to help you so you won't feel any contractions and can even go to sleep. For episiotomy, you'll be injected with a local anesthesia to make the area numb (and if you're on epidural, you'll also won't feel a thing cos you'll be numb from waist down) so yes you won't feel the doc stitching you up but you'll feel slight pain & feel uncomfortable when the numbness wears off. That's when you'll have difficulties sitting, lying, peeing & even pooping.
Hi, yes it was painful for me. But while I was in so much pain, i regretted not taking epidural even the nurses nagged at me coz i was screaming in pain hahahaha. Yes can feel stitches. It was quite uncomfortable. After all that.. i think i would be ok without epi for my next. But really depends. To me epi is a normal thing. If u rather not go thru all the trouble of pain or ur threshold is not so good, why not? But if u think u wanna experience the pain, its also fine. And btw, even without epi, my back still ache like crazy. So yeah.
For me, as my pain threshold is low, So I had to ask for epidural cause the contractions are quite painful when they come like waves. after having the epidural, I felt numb from waist down, So I don't really feel anything when the trainee doctor cut and she stitched it back up.
The pain was too painful until it got numb so I didn't feel the stitches😅 My birth plan was not to take epi no matter what so i stick to it and told my gynae even though i was in so much pain. Just took gas throughout. You do you mummy💪