Glasses or contacts during labor?
—Meredith
Pregnant women are sometimes given the advice not to wear contact lenses during labor and to use their glasses instead. Why? You obviously do not labor with your face, so what’s the reason for this?
There are two possible reasons why you might want to avoid contacts during labor. One is the length of time you would be wearing them. Labor can last a long time — 24, 36 hours — and many types of contacts are designed for 8 to 10 hours of wear. It’s not like your eyes fall out if you wear them for longer, but your eyes can get dry and irritated.
It’s possible this will be annoying during labor, or also possible you will not notice as you’re pushing an entire person out through your vagina. Regardless, you are probably already familiar with what it feels like to leave your contacts in for a long time, and it bothers some people more than others.
The second concern is about what happens if you go under a general anesthesia. This is unlikely, but in some cases a C-section might have to be done under general anesthesia. (This is about 3% to 4% of C-section cases, so a bit less than 1% of all births.) Contacts are usually discouraged under a general, because of the length of time with your eyes closed — this is true for any surgery. Again, it’s not that your eyes will fall out, but you could end up with very irritated eyes.
Basically: if you wear contacts, there is a very small chance you may need to remove them in an emergency situation, and a larger chance you would find your eyes are itchy. So maybe bring some glasses as a backup if you go this direction.
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