AIBU but why are so many women induced?

[labourisscary]

Everyone I know (nearly) who has given birth have been induced and so many of them have then had to have emergency c-sections. I have heard the numbers being induced are simply down to hospitals/docs etc not wanting to monitor you in the later stages of your pregnancy so they induce...I really do not want to be induced, I truly believe that it is better for the Mum and baby to let things develop naturally where possible...am I alone? AIBU??

Op can’t you have your care at a midwife lead birth centre? Much more chance of keeping it natural.

If the risk was so great, c-section should have been the only way, surely?

I tend to think that. I don't think the risks of induction are always fully explained.

2 inductions both vaginal deliveries. Ist baby was overdue and second baby I was induced at 38 weeks due to chronic pre natal depression.

2nd baby, the consultant prepped me for a c section when the labour failed to “progress”. Only had been in active labour for 12 hours and got to 9 cm but the last cm was taking its time. Apparently.

Got all prepped and then had a staff change. The new consultant was aghast as why I was having a c section. The hormone drip was still on quite low (sorry don’t know medical terms!) so she adjusted that and said she’d be back in two hours.

She came back, I was fully dilated- three pushes and the baby was born. Left that evening!

I’ll forever be grateful to that consultant who stopped me going through an unnecessary c section!

These days babies' growth is monitored through growth scans, but it's a fairly recent development (my mum says there were no scans when she was pregnant). The scans can pick up things that were missed in the old days, such as growth dropping below the curve. I was induced with both of my babies for this reason, and was happy because it reduced the risk of having stillborn babies. I disagree that "natural" is always best and welcome the medical interventions that may have saved both my babies' lives.

I had an induction at 40+12 because my baby showed no signs of coming out and I didn’t want to chance a stillbirth so did not want to be monitored. Also my mother had gone to 44 weeks with my brother (she claims).
Induction took 3 days.
I also had an induction with baby2 at 40+11 because he was huge and I was huge. Took 2 days, he was over 10 pounds.

little or no evidence
Post term pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of fetal and neonatal mortality and morbidity (Olesen et al., 2003a;2003b) as well as an increased maternal morbidity (Caughey et al., 2007). Antepartum stillbirth at and beyond term (37-43 weeks gestation) is a major public health problem accounting for a greater contribution to perinatal mortality than either deaths from complications of prematurity or the sudden infant death syndrome
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3991404/

So they made up all those studies, did they? Whywould they? And why would the health service want to pretend there was a problem, if it was perfectly safe to just wait?

I was induced on Tuesday due to 10 episodes of reduced movements- I ended up having a emergency c section yesterday! They did induce when I was 37+4 had I known I was gonna be in labour so long, I wouldn't haven't agreed to it

One in five pregnancies are induced, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rate varies between hospitals.

I can't speak for all women who have been induced, but mine was because of serious medical reasons. It was made clear to me that I could decline, but the severity of the situation was also stressed.

Whilst the OP is being a bit U, it’s not beyond imagination that there are stats and quotas to be met/avoided as @ohyesiam states.

I work in NHS management and I deal with stats and quotas every single day. I truly believe that it’s absolute pot luck what your birth outcomes are (within reason) depending on whom your consultant is, if you give birth on their shift, how stretched the midwifery team are, how busy theatre is with EMCS’ and finally what the appetite for risk is within the trust.

Say you have a trust that’s already inducing and CSing labours at 65% over recommended numbers. What’s another few inductions or sections (because of extreme and unpragmatic risk aversion OR time constraints) if you’re already way over target?

Alternatively, if (like a trust in the NW I know that now has impeccable maternity care following a terrible scandal) you have a trust that’s meeting targets, doing well stats wise, is regarded as having excellent supportive maternity care then it’s more likely than not that that team will have the time and pragmatism to balance the mothers wishes and their risk appetite and not plump for induction as an (almost) first resort.

In short, it’s not inconceivable that inductions happen for hospitals to meet targets. It’s not inconceivable that this may mean mothers’ wishes are ignored or overruled without clinical need. BUT as others have said in plenty cases inductions are for real, necessary reason.

I just think the NHS is so over stretched and so risk averse that’s why we have different birth outcomes to our nearest European neighbours (BElguim, France, Germany, Netherlands).

LONG POST

I was induced with both of mine. Both had 12 hour labours and vaginal births.

DS1 was induced at 35 weeks due to my waters breaking early with no sign of contractions.

DS2 was planned induction at 38 weeks as he was looking huge and I was given a choice between induction and csection. He was 9.5lbs (so probably more like 10.5 if gone to term) and had big shoulders and head and I did end up with an episiotomy to get him out safely.

@LadyFatboobs ...thank you!! That is a great post...of course lots of women have inductions for medical reasons, I guess maybe I should have worded my posts a little better!! I am interested in women who had in inductions for reasons that don't seem to be entirely medical...and the idea that induction is a first resort...I'm not sure that it should be. But I am not a doctor or midwife or nurse, I have huge respect for these professionals and the NHS...I will listen to these professionals when I give birth, but I do like to know the facts...this thread has really helped so thank you!!

40+12 or 42 weeks whichever you prefer. DC didn’t want to come and I agreed for induction. Thank goodness for that. My waters were green/brown due to meconium in it, ventouse delivery. DC born with peeling skin, not breathing instantly, fluctuation of temperature and sugar so had to be monitored for a couple of days. I don’t want to think what would have happen if I had listen to” baby will come when it’s ready” and “ you must have got your dates wrong” ( no I fucking didn’t).

@ilovegin112

I was induced because the maternity hospital I was at labour ward was closing because of the sewers, (we were in the day unit), I wasn’t wanting to move to a new hospital nor have an armed guard on the door, this was nearly 19yrs ago and we were in the day unit for 3 nights with 5 new mums and 6 new babies it was great

I’ve read this again and again and I can’t work out what the connection is between sewers and armed guards?!!

Inductions I know of:
13 days overdue, lack of movement, concerns about small size, gestational diabetes, waters broke but nothing else happened.
So no, not for no reason.

5 out of my 6 were induced , combination of large babies and being overdue , all natural births and no labour lasted longer than 6 hours from start to finish

I know this is purely anecdotal, but when I was pregnant I knew 3 other women who were due to give birth around the same time. All over 35 with me being the oldest at just over 40. No health issues with any of us. All of us ended up having C-sections. 1 was planned due to low placenta, 2 were emergency following induction due to going overdue, with various complications afterwards. I was last and ended up with what they termed a 'semi-elective'. From the booking appointment onwards I was being told that I wouldn't be 'allowed' to go over 40 weeks. I was treated as high risk just because I was 40, everything seems to be decided on risk factors rather than individual health. I refused to be induced at 40 weeks, I had monitoring instead. I was then pressurised into being induced at 40+12. I wanted to wait a bit longer as my dates (which I was sure of) were different to the scan dates. It took 5 days of waiting, monitoring, pessaries, hardly any sleep in the hospital for me to dilate all of 1cm! As soon as they mentioned C-section I jumped at the chance, I'd had enough and having heard what my 2 friends went through with carrying on with induction (which sounded brutal to be honest) and ended up with C-section anyway, I thought it would probably just go the same way for me. I know I may be an extreme case, and it may be age related, but I do feel from my experience and my friends that induction is used too frequently and can be ineffective.

I had to be induced following a stay at hospital due to pre eclampsia, I stayed to be monitored as they wanted me to remain pregnant for as long as it was safe for me and dc. Induced at 35wks +5days dc was was tiny at 5lb 3oz for a tiny baby, she was back to back so had forceps delivery with the threat of a C-section if I didn't get her out within two pushes.

I can't imagine they want babies out for their own convenience and that they would much prefer a baby to stay inside for as long as possible until its deemed unsafe for mother and baby.

If you don't want to be induced then I'm pretty sure it's your choice unless you absolutely need medical intervention.

Sorry this was in Northern Ireland , the midwifes, Doctor and dh(army) decided that with me being English if I was transferred to Londonderry I would need an armed guard on the door, to be fair it would be someone with a hand gun not someone there with assault rifle.

The sewers breaking meant theyclosed the main delivery rooms and maternity ward, at the time you were still being kept in for at least 5 days after delivery so as a consequence they ran out of room on the day unit. The main unit was shut for approx a week

I was induced at 37 weeks for obstetric cholestasis but I had to beg for this. I had a vaginal delivery and it turned out, once I'd delivered my placenta, that my placenta was failing and my baby wouldn't have survived another week.

I thank my lucky stars every day for inductions.

Thanks @ilovegin112 makes more sense now!

I was induced with baby no. 3 because I was ten days over with no sign of anything happening despite walks up hills and similar - they would have been happy for me to go another 1 or 2 days but by then I was fed up tbh. I'd gone into labour spontaneously with both the others and I just felt right about a gentle shove/helping hand. Induction at least being offered at term + 10 is fairly standard where I am. There followed a few hours of virtually nothing happening and then a very precipitate labour, going 2cm to birth in 20 minutes - whether the induction was a factor in that I don't know.

I have 3 dds. On dd1 i was induced because my waters went and if labour didn't start within 24 hours I would need to be induced because of risk to baby. Labour never started so I was induced absolutely right and necessary decision.
Dd2 I went in to labour at home very fast labour daughter born within minutes of getting to hospital no interventions at all.
Dd3 I was a week over had a bleed so brought to hospital baby scanned and all fine bleeding stopped. I was admitted to hospital for observations consultant on shift wanted to break my waters when I queried why only explanation was i was over and had a bleed so probably for the best. As it was my third I had more confidence so refused intervention. Consultant not happy saying she'd look at it again on her next round. When the rounds were being done again it was a different consultant. He agreed with me said baby is fine i am fine and due to my previous fast labour he was confident same would happy again but if they broke my waters I could have a more prolonged labour. After 24 hours obs all good so went home. Following day I went into labour and baby delivered within 10 mins of getting to hospital . I've no doubt that if I'd been induced 2 days previously baby would have come at same time but I've had 2 days of labour as opposed to 2 hours!

Inductions are necessary in some circumstances but always ask if they offer it what is the effect to baby if I don't and make your decision from there.

In my circle of friends I’m the only one who had an induction which ended with an emcs, out of about 20 births, 5 were induced and 4 were normal deliveries.
I was induced at 40 +16, I would have held out for spontaneous labour but my sister had a still birth so my nerve went. I stuck at 8cm for about 8 hours despite having my waters broken manually (a fairly horrific experience) and having max dose of hormonal drip which was leading to very obvious foetal distress.
The only thing I would change about my experience would be to just go straight to section cause my dd was stuck like a cork in a bottle which was very obvious by her wee cone head when she arrived.

My 42 week old baby nearly died when I started leaking meconium stained waters so I was induced and they got him out , I wasn’t going into labour on my own so I had intervention . He spent a week in scbu and is now a strapping 14 year old . I can’t stand the attitude that people should just wait and watch when it’s proven there are more adverse outcomes after a certain gestation , I think any intervention that can save even one baby is something we should be grateful for .

I was induced at 42 weeks, unsuccessfully. EMCS at 42+1. I do think there's a genetic link (mother born at 42 weeks naturally, but labour started the intended day of induction, me and eldest brother both induced at 42 weeks), and I probably would've been okay another few days BUT...

When I was 14, my brother died in utero at around 39 weeks. Due to this family history, and this deeply affecting me psychologically, I could not risk the increased risk of problems past 42 - I never asked for it, but I was sorely tempted to request early induction because of this and quite bad Antenatal Depression. Medical intervention was necessary for me.

My SIL was induced around 40 weeks because of horrible blood pressure problems.

It's not a one size fits all approach.