That sounds like a definatly old wives tale to me, but who knows. An epi isn't the only form of pain medication you can get though. It seems like everyone opts for these when there is so much more out there that you could be trying. Ask your doctor about different pain medications you can recieve during labor and take child birth classes to learn about child birth. Natural child birth isn't as horrible as people make it out to be and if this is your first and circumstances allow it, I would go for as long as you can before asking for pain medication. By the time I felt I needed it, it was time to push and that only lasted about ten minutes.