get and read the book Immaculate Deception. It talks about all the issues with the various pain meds used during labor.

I had both of my children with a midwife practice at a large academic medical center. I have some health issues that rule out home birth or even a birthing center, but most of my friends go that route. If you want a natural birth, go that route. If you want to do everything humanly possible to avoid c-section (and I think that's the best idea), go the natural birth route.

Even though I was with a practice that encouraged natural birth, that encouraged mothers to consider not having pain medication, I still had an epidural with both of my children. For the first, I will say that it ultimately saved my delivery. I think without it I would have had the c-section. It is very difficult in the hospital setting to go through completely naturally. People can gently say "we can make you more comfortable"...

In the end, I don't think the epidural does much harm to the baby. But the real issue at stake is the critical bonding/breastfeeding time following birth. How does the epidural impact that? It can elevate the mother's body temperature, this is a fairly common reaction to it. However, when the mother's temperature is elevated, the medical staff assume infection first, whisk the baby off to the NICU, start a course of anti-biotics and separate mother and baby. There goes the critical bonding time, there goes the instinctive breastfeeding window. You can never get those things back, and now your baby is being pumped full of meds that aren't really good for them because they kill off good bacteria.

Read Immaculate deception. That scenario didn't happen to me. I think if I have another I'm going to hire a birth doula and try to actually do it naturally.