Survey of the Factors Associated with a Woman's Choice to Have an Epidural for Labor Analgesia

Table 1

Demographics, obstetric data as well as patient and partner desire for labor epidural.

	Received epidural (𝑛=243)	No epidural (𝑛=59)
Patients desire for epidural (0–100)	60±40	11±24^∗
Age (yr)	29±7	26±6
Height (cm)	163±8	160±3
Weight (kg)	72±15	70±15
BMI (gm/m^2)	30±5	30±5
Wt of Baby (gm)	3308±567	3266±631
Nulliparous	52%	35%^∗
Previous epidural	81%	22%^∗
Pitocin used during labor	75%	37%^∗
Partner’s preference for epidural
Yes	61%	44%^∗
No	10%	16%
Undecided	29%	40%^∗
Language
English	56%	29%^∗
Spanish	31%	66%^∗
Other	13%	5%
Did not finish high school	19%	46%^∗
Labor >6 hours	72%	32%^∗
MediCal Insurance	45%	69%^∗
Ethnicity
Hispanic	42%	68%^∗
Caucasian	29%	7%^∗
East Asian	12%	10%
Indian Asian	8%	2%
Pacific Islander	6%	12%
African American	2%	2%
Other	2%	0%

Values expressed as mean±SD, median(IQR) or percentages;
^∗𝑃<.05 between groups that did and did not receive epidurals;
N.S.=No significant difference between the groups.
Data reported as percentages analyzed with Chi-square analysis. Other data analyzed using the Student 𝑡-test except the score of desiring an epidural. A Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U-test was used in this case since the two groups had differences in how the data were distributed.