Product Review - Epi-no Childbirth Trainer

I first head about the Epi-no (pro­duced by Stard­berg Med­ical) dur­ing one of my birthing classes.  The mid­wife showed it to the group, and most of the women in the class dis­missed as an unnec­es­sary expense.  I, on the other hand, was fascinated!

The ‘child­birth trainer’ is basi­cally a vagi­nal dila­tor.  An inflat­able bal­loon is inserted into the vagina.  For the three weeks before the birth, you can use it to gen­tly stretch out the pelvic floor mus­cles.  Addi­tion­ally, you hold the bal­loon inside for about ten min­utes or so, and then you can, essen­tially, prac­tice the sec­ond stage of labor by deliv­er­ing the balloon.

The Epi-no was designed by a Ger­man doc­tor who observed women in tribal com­mu­ni­ties in Africa who used dif­fer­ent sized gourds for the same pur­pose.  They have to do their best to avoid tear­ing as it can spell death in com­mu­ni­ties where access to med­ical aid is lim­ited.  The clin­i­cal tri­als of the Epi-no show a marked reduc­tion in epi­siotomy and tear­ing rates in women who used it as well as a short­ened 2nd stage of labor. (the clin­i­cal trial infor­ma­tion can be found under ‘stud­ies’ on this Epi-no site - I have also attached a visual of some of their results at the end of the post) That data and the phrase ‘intact per­ineum rates’ is what really sold me.

The cost runs some­where around $100 to $120.  There are two types of train­ers, the Del­phine and the Del­phine Plus.  The Plus has a gauge attached, sim­i­lar to a blood pres­sure mon­i­tor, so you use it a bit more quan­ti­ta­tively.  Being the sci­ence dork I am, I got the one with the gauge.  It was use­ful in prac­tice because as I tried to relax the mus­cles with the bal­loon inserted, I could watch the pres­sure on the gauge drop.

I had a very pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence with the Epi-no, and I rec­om­mend it to any preg­nant women who can use it safely.  There are some con­traindi­ca­tions as described in the man­ual — as always talk with your doc­tor or mid­wife.  I started using it three weeks before my due date, and found that I could only com­fort­ably stand about 7 cm of open­ing.  By my due date, I could com­fort­ably open to 10 cm, which was a bit smaller than the baby’s head.  Dur­ing the 2nd stage of labor, I didn’t expe­ri­ence any notice­able dis­com­fort from the baby’s decent aside from pres­sure on the colon (of course the con­trac­tions were a bit dis­tract­ing).  The baby was born breech from a hands-and-knees pos­ture, and I did not tear at all.  I don’t know if I was just lucky or if the Epi-no really helped, but I would def­i­nitely do it again.  I have learned that my body can always do things bet­ter if it has had prac­tice, and giv­ing birth is a pretty huge thing for the pelvic floor to do with­out a lot of preparation.

The Epi-no can also be used after the birth to help strengthen the pelvic floor.  You can insert the bal­loon, inflate it just enough to feel it, and then use your mus­cles to squeeze it.  If you have the ‘Del­phine Plus’ you can watch the gauge to see progress in your mus­cle strength.  It is also used to help improve incon­ti­nence (I learned from talk­ing with a friend who is a geri­atric nurse).

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Tagged as: Birthing, product review