W e agree with the evidence comparing programmed intermittent epidural boluses (PIEB) to conventional continuous epidural infusions (CEI) for maintaining epidural labor analgesia presented by Munro and George, (1) showing advantages with PIEB for both the patient (with less local anesthetic consumption, improved maternal satisfaction, potentially shorter duration of labor) and the anesthesia team (with decreased workload requirements) (2). However we disagree with their interpretation of the data, specifically the effect size of the demonstrated improvements (3). As we previously stated, the observed differences are modest and of limited clinical impact (4). The epidural analgesic technique of PIEB therefore needs to be considered only an incremental improvement over CEI for the maintenance of epidural labor analgesia. As such rather than focusing on the limited improvement of PIEB, perhaps we need to shift our overall perspective.A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and practices of a discipline (5). In our opinion, there have only been a few paradigm shifts for labor pain management, for example, the discovery of local anesthetics and their utilization to provide spinal and/ or epidural analgesia; and the finding of opioid receptors in the spinal cord that has facilitated the use of neuraxial opioids. These changes moved labor pain control from practices involving inhalational anesthesia, twilight sleep or relying on systemic opioids (6), to epidural labor analgesic techniques that many laboring women request and receive during childbirth (7). However within these paradigm shifts, there have been many significant improvements in the analgesia and safe care that we provide laboring women. Examples of such improvements would include the use of epidural catheters instead of a single-shot spinal, epidural or caudal techniques, utilization of dilute local anesthetic opioid-containing solutions, smart volumetric epidural pumps, patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA), combined spinal-epidural (CSE) analgesia, and flexible wire-reinforced epidural catheters. Some of these changes were major improvements and others incremental, but cumulatively these changes are substantive and have fundamentally improved our practices.So where does PIEB fit into these paradigms shifts and stepwise improvements? We agree with Munro and George, (1) that PIEB is superior to CEI for delivering local anesthetics to the epidural space and maintaining epidural labor analgesia. However, the improvement PIEB for Labor Analgesia RILEY vs. MUNRO Second Round DEBATE 73