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Although midwives sound like characters straight out of 19^th century based romance novel, it is still widely utilized among women today; those who do not trust hospitals, who view the delivery process as a private affair or women who prefer more holistic forms of child-birthing midwives are simply the better option.

While Epidurals are only available to hospital patients and even then seen by some as an 'unnatural' and dangerous process to ease labor pains, researchers say that inhaled pain relief can be used in home births as well as hospital births and is a safe non-invasive method for relieving pain.

A systematic review that drew data from twenty-six separate studies that involved a total of 2,959 women, and which is published in The Cochrane Library suggests that inhaling a mixture of oxygen and either a flurane derivative or nitrous oxide reduces pain and allows expectant mothers to remain awake and lucid. As easy as slipping on a mask, the gas can be administered in a minute and will become affective in a little under one.

The study does offer a caveat that women who choose to take nitrous oxide instead of fluranes (the latter of which is more powerful, with no side effects but only available in hospitals) can experience, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and drowsiness. However studies have shown that most women would accept these side-effects just to stem the pain of birthing.

The researchers believe that a more widespread use of nitrous oxide could help many women who at the moment do not have any option for pain relief, however note that where there are appropriately trained anaesthesia professionals, flurane is the preferred gas to use.

 Trudy Klomp, who works at the Department of Midwifery Science and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research at VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam despite personal responses to pain and pain intensity, "inhaled analgesia's ability to significantly reduce pain intensity and increase pain relief indicates that it can help women in labour, particularly those who want pain relief but do not want more intensive forms such as epidurals."