Question: My wife, was undergoing in her 9th month of pregnancy with weekly checkups being done by the doctor. Her expected date was 18th to 22nd of December but she started feeling uneasy on 10th Dec. with slight discharge. We met the doctor on 11th Dec. itself where the doctor suggested taking castor oil with milk every day in the morning. On 13th Dec. afternoon at around 3:00pm, she started feeling the pain. She was taken to the doctor around 06:30pm and after checkup, the doctor suggested that it was an actual labor pain and she was admitted in the hospital. Till 01:30 in the night, she had labor pain and was getting good contractions. After that, contractions suddenly stopped. Doctor administered drugs through vaginal opening to induce labor pain to the patient at 06:00am and 10:00am. Till 11:00am, the dilation was 1cm. In addition, they also provided Petocin through intravenous means to the patient after 11:00am. At around 12 o’clock, the dilation level reached 2-2.5cm. Patient started feeling pain because of her condition and the doctor started suggesting painless delivery by epidural method. At around 02:00pm, epidural method was administered to the patient. Around 02:45-03:00pm, the doctor suggested that the dilation levels are not going up from 2-2.5cms; hence, they may have to go for a caesarian delivery. They suggested that the kid is in the uterus for last 24 hrs. and the nutritional levels from uterus walls would start going down. As per doctors, if the dilation level did not move up till 05:00pm, they would go for caesarian in the best interests of the baby and the mother. The caesarian procedure was started around 5:30pm and she gave birth to a healthy baby (weight 3.35kg) at 5:45pm. Both mother and the baby are healthy. Ques 1: Is the sequence of events okay as per standard medical operating procedures? Ques 2: Were the doctors correct in suggesting epidural in the given conditions?