Coming up, some hospitals are offering a different way to treat labor pain, one that patients might be familiar with from the dentist office.

As you breathe it in, just like any gas, oxygen, and so on, it's taken up into your bloodstream, circulates to your brain, your spinal cord, and so on, and it reacts on a variety of receptors.

He's also on the American Society of Anesthesiologists Committee on Obstetric Anesthesia and helped write their guidelines on the use of nitrous oxide.

As you breathe it in, just like any gas, oxygen, so on, it's taken up into your bloodstream, circulates to your brain, your spinal cord, and so on.

And it reacts on a variety of receptors.

So there's receptors that are called NMDA receptors.

There's GABA receptors.

It also activates certain opioid and noradrenergic receptors.