Induction

@InvisibleDragon officially, yes. It's your body, your birth, your choice.

In reality, no. They'll strong arm you into whichever option is easiest for them (and they do have internal targets on how few csections the hospital has).

Also everyone talks down to you like you are a dangerous, fractious child the moment you get pregnant.

In short, prépare to fight right at the time of your life where you feel most vulnerable.

@MouseyTheVampireSlayer so sorry about what happened to you. Thank you for sharing your story.

Mousey I'm so sorry to hear about what happened to you and your baby - it sounds like it's been an awful experience for you.

I don't have children yet, but the lack of information to make informed decisions about giving birth is something that worries me a lot. How much flexibility is there to choose something else than induction? If I was pregnant and didn't go into labour 'naturally,' I'd far rather have a planned caesarean at that point than to go through a whole series of interventions that end up with an emergency caesarean anyway. Is it even possible to make that choice?

More money for maternity services is, I feel, the real feminist issue this thread should be about.
Not demonising induction.
And don't underestimate what a thing it is to have a live mum and a healthy baby. People take it for granted. I know I did.

There's two different issues here.

One is, are all inductions 100% necessary? Including past dates when the woman believes the nhs dates are wrong and her baby is in fact a bit younger? A woman from my nct group - healthy, under 30, low risk all along - got told she'd better induce at 39 weeks at a routine check. No medical reason other than "39 weeks is at term so might as well, you don't want to wait and have a stillbirth". She did, of course, who doesn't follow medical advice? Traumatic, instrumental birth, episiotomy, the works, didn't manage to breastfeed which she wanted to do beforehand. But from the nhs point of view, she is alive, so is her baby, and due to the induction she gave birth at a time when there was space on the ward and they were fully staffed so yay! All good. If they had waited a week or so maybe the ward would have been understaffed and having a midwife spend time with her might have meant giving less attention to other patients, some of whom might have been high risk and in need of a lot of attention.

Two, are women who are being induced given a level of care in line with the level of pain / trauma caused by the induction itself? And there I would strongly argue the answer is a big fat no. Women's pain, cut up bodies and months / years of recurring flashbacks and nightmares just do not count in this country in this day and age. And that's why lots of us turn to alternative medicine and general woowoo - not because we're stupid or uninformed but because, for mental health reasons, it is perfectly rational to look for the kind of help who will not inflict a lot of pain and trauma on you without thinking twice about it. Even if that does carry medical risk.

We know the cure to all this don't we. More money for maternity services. And yet will it happen? (rhetorical question)

Debilitating not rehabilitating.

And my induction was awful. Hugely painful and traumatic.
But I'd choose it in a heartbeat again if I could change things for Ds.
Birth trauma can be rehabilitating. It can be treated though. I'm having rapid eye movement for mine.
But brain damage or stillbirth can't be addressed in the same way.
I might feel ok about the trauma of birth at some point.
I will never, ever get over the fact my beautiful boy has a disability that could have been avoided.

My point is I was told the risks. They seemed small and very unlikely. And yet, here I am.
And nice guidelines allow a wait of 24 hours. Knowing what I know now, that's obviously right.
I don't think that inductions are happening without reason. Waters breaking, going over forty weeks- can have devastating effect and it's not justified just because some people are fine. If induction is proved to lower the risk it should be used because you don't know who's going to be unlucky.

The new draft Nice guidelines have done this amd they’re proposing to bring the standard induction date forward…I think to 40+7, it’s 40+10 at the minute.

There was a Swedish study recently where they tested later inductions. Unfortunately they had to halt it, but the results they had available said that week 41 was the optimal time. Link to article about the study, Trigger Warning www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/28/post-term-pregnancy-research-cancelled-babies-die-sweden

@MouseyTheVampireSlayer I’m really sorry about what happened in your situation and yes people should be informed about risks and not just told say ‘infection’ but told ‘infection that could cause x,y,z’.

But as you say most people go into labour naturally after their waters have broken and most people don’t get an infection. I don’t think it’s fair to say that hundreds/thousands of women should undergo potentially unnecessary interventions because there is a chance that it could stop something bad from happening. It needs to be a choice but women need to be informed fully about the risks of the interventions and the risk of doing nothing.

I’m sorry I know this is emotive and I mean this respectfully but I’m sure there are women on here who have birth trauma or long lasting birth injuries who would have also been saved a lot of pain and heartache if they had been fully informed about induction.

Hugs @MouseyTheVampireSlayer

I wish I'd been on Mumsnet before. Lots of posters saying I needed to have an induction might have saved me.heartache.

Pink Plant.
One midwife told me I'd feel horrible if something happened.
That haunts me everyday.

mousey I'm so glad you came back and posted again. Stories like yours are really important. All the best to you and your son. X

I had a positive birth because I spent my pregnancy researching and reading so that I could make informed decisions throughout about mine and my child's health

I did that and once of mine And me would’ve died if it hadn’t been for medical intervention.

Thankfully no long term damage, but that statement there is so crass.

@KM38 I’ve actually found the opposite on here though about people’s approach to induction, there was a thread a week or two ago by a lady who was over 42 weeks but was refusing induction, she was overwhelming told by other posters that her baby would probably die as a result of her actions and was called stupid and selfish etc.

@MoonlightApple I think the problem is that many women aren’t given enough information to make informed choices about induction. Or they are given lots of information about the ‘first choice’ eg. A pessary induction or a ballon catheter but much less information about what needs to happen next if labour doesn’t become established. Or they aren’t given that info until after the first intervention has happened.

Equally there are different approaches to birth in general, as you say some people want a more medical approach, it makes them feel safer and they think it’s best for their family. Other people see birth as a natural process (both the good and the bad) that doesn’t need to be medicalised.

I don’t know how doctors and midwives find the balance but I guess they somehow need to become more patient led rather than using universal pathways, there need to be more opportunities for women to tailor their care. Whether that’s for a woman to decide she wants an elec. c section or a home birth.

In all fairness my trust do this very well, they have a dedicated home birth team where you have the same midwife the whole way through and I’ve found their views have very much aligned with mine but I’ve still be well informed of potentially risks of choices whilst always still being given the option to have ‘a home birth outside of guidance’ if the result of any particular test would mean that a hb would no longer be recommended. There has been no pressure, I could still decide on the day that I want to give birth in a birth centre or in delivery suite.

Anyway it’s the people that have no strong view on birth either way that I worry about. I imagine that’s where the most unnecessary interventions happen if women aren’t fully informed about what their choices are aside from what a hospital ‘has always done’ are and what the knock on impacts could be. Eg. The benefits of mobile during labour.

Thanks. Life is very hard at the moment. Obviously it will always be but it's particularly raw at the moment.

Just for clarity, by the way, no red button was pushed for me and I gave birth vaginally.
The stroke could have happened in the hours we waited, or in the hours I was having the induction (there was an emergency elsewhere so the staff disappeared for a few hours)
I had antibiotics as well on a drip so despite their best efforts it happened. There isn't really much you can do other than hope an infection doesn't hurt your baby, once it's set in motion, not much can be done.
I was naive about that and thought a red button situation would save him.
It's very sad to think about how those misconceptions contributed to an unnecessary disability.

I would have made the same post if I had had a healthy baby.
But I learned the hard way why the NHS is risk adverse and think more stories like mine need to be told. If my post makes one woman double think her choice and it stops a situation like mine it's worth it.

I wouldn’t want a non-medicalised cancer treatment or a non-medicalised operation. I don’t think it’s the medicalisation that’s bad. Also Hasn’t there been a lot of trouble recently (is it in Shrewsbury?) of midwifes prioritising their belief in ‘natural’ births over the safety of mother and child?

For me the most important thing is that women who are pregnant are given enough information to make truly informed decisions about their labour and birth and that they can make meaningful choices about how it happens within the unique constraints of their labour.

I'm so sorry, Mousey. And I'm sorry that my own post sounds crass and unthinking next to yours. I would have framed and worded it very differently if I'd read yours first.

I am sympathetic to the fact you feel attacked op and do understand where you're coming from.

However this statement really stood out for me:
, if I hadn't of read some books then I probably would have just trusted whatever the doctor or midwife told me and I don't think things would have gone well for me.

Because I did that. I hired an expensive hypnobirth practitioner who told me stories about women whose waters had gone for days and days and they still had a healthy baby and natural birth. People told me medicalised horror stories and lovely water birth ones.
It all culminated in me making the decision to delay induction. I only waited 48 hours, but that was 48 hours that changed my life and my baby's life forever.

Yes induction is painful. Yes it may not always be necessary. But the view it's overused caused me to wait and the cost to my baby is too high. I've got severe depression, been suicidal, have extreme guilt because I believed those stories. If stories like mine were being told maybe I'd have acted differently. I knew it was a risk but didn't realise how quickly it can go wrong or how many actual lives ruined that tiny statistic is. I knew most people go into natural labour anyway within 48 hours. I knew most babies don't get infections.

But I was one of the unlucky ones.
And you were lucky, op.
That's kind of how birth works, yet an earlier induction and listening to the medical staff would mean my baby wouldn't have cerebral palsy. When something as permanent as that happens to you you realise how temporary giving birth is.
I have to deal with the fact I prioritised a natural birth over my baby for the rest of my life.

I did say I wasn't going to post again, but I think it's important stories like mine are put there.

Because without them it's not really an informed choice.

And I wish I'd heard one. My whole life would be complete and not destroyed.

That's it really.

I had one induction because my labour was 'too slow' and they needed the room. Horrendous cascade of interventions birth. SIL worked labour ward and said they use inductions to manage patient numbers.

My baby is 17 now but this rang painful bells for me. I was asked to come in for a check about 36 hours after my waters broke, spent about an hour pacing the floor of the gynae wards trying to establish contractions. Was then told I was being sent down to the Labour Ward as gynae was getting full and the Labour Ward was lovely and empty. It was only when I got there, settled in a room and my husband sent off to the 24 hour garage to get himself a coffee, that they told me that I had to be in labour to be on the Labour Ward, so a drip was going in. Then only once the cannula was in my arm that they explained that meant no water birth, no toilet trips, no moving from the bed. I came out the other end with a healthy baby but spent weeks crying and months having flashbacks.

@RaeRaeMama I am sorry you feel attacked. To be fair, I think the way you went at this made a fair few of us feel attacked. Literally every woman I know would say that birth needs to be woman-centred but as with anything important in life, people have different views how to go about that principle. No woman should be bullied either to have a more medicalised birth than she wants, or to have less medical care than she wants.

@RaeRaeMama yes I remember it coming up during NCT... out of 8 of us I think only two had non-assisted vaginal births and one of those was slightly premature, so only the one had a go in the MLU in the end! Actually maybe two, one lady I can't remember her story. But we definitely had three c sections (beech, pre-eclampsia, v big baby) and two inductions for SGA/IUGR.
I really do understand where you're coming from, I felt quite rushed into going for induction when they realised DD was SGA and had had a few RFM episodes and when we were in on monitoring she was absolutely fine each time (had meconium/distress during labour due to hypertonic (?) reaction to the drip, and infection) but I think in that small subset any one of the 'medicalised' ones could have gone very wrong had they waited to see.

I'd love to think I can have an MLU birth if we have another but I would still think long and hard about going against medical advice after doing due diligence, just because they see far more births than I ever will.