Early Induction Advice Needed Please

[Revelsarethebest]

Went to see my consultant yesterday to see if she will induce me due to very painful SPD. Had it bad from 8 weeks.

Im 39+3 and consultant has agreed to induce me on Monday (one day after due date)

Yesterday she gave me a sweep, said she didnt think it will work as babys head isnt far enough down.

She did agree to induce me earlier this week but they were fully booked up and she couldnt fit me in.

So on Monday im to go in at 3.30pm to be started off.

I ve heard this can be a long process if its forced labour i.e baby not ready to come.

Consultant has also warned me that with induced labours theres a high risk of needing assistance during the labour i.e forcepes.

Can anyone offer advice on how things will work etc and what are the chances of it being a long process?

It depends entirely on how ready you and the baby are for labour. If the baby's head is engaged and your cervix is 'ripe' (fully effaced) then induction will just kick off what would have happened by itself in a short time anyway and should be uncomplicated.

Inductions usually start with the insertion of either a gel pessary or a tampon-type device that releases hormones. Once the gel's in, it's in, but the 'tampon' can be taken out if necessary. If that doesn't get things going then the next steps are hooking you up to a syntocinon drip, which mimics the hormones that bring on natural labour, and/or breaking your waters with a small hook.

From my own experience of an early induction at 37 weeks, I was nowhere near ready to go into labour so I needed the gel pessary, the syntocinon and artificial rupture of membranes to get things going. On my birth plan this time it states quite clearly that if I'm being given syntocinon or having my waters broken as part of an induction then I'll need an epidural first. I was really shocked at how the drip and waters going catapulted me straight into full-on contractions - my body didn't have time to work up to them so I was immediately in a lot of pain and couldn't cope. DS was born via ventouse.

That is not everyone's experience though and you will be at full term for your induction (might even have had the baby by yourself by then :)) so hopefully all you will need is the pessary and it will be a quick, smooth birth.

Hi Revels. The reason this can be a drawn out process is that there are several stages they may try to use to encourage labour to begin. They are likely to commence using prostaglandins (a synthetic hormone). This is likely to be a gel or a vaginal pessary that tries to soften the cervix. Sometimes, using prostaglandins and then artificially breaking your waters can start labour if your body is ready. You and baby will be monitored during this to ensure that your cervix has not overreacted and contracted too much before the baby is ready to move down. You may be given another dose of Prostaglandins after 6 hours if your cervix is not "favourable". If you have not responded to the prostaglandins, the next stage is likely to be a syntocinon intravenous drip which is a synthetic form of the hormone, oxytocin. This can produce very strong contractions so you will need to be monitored continually. This is also the reason why there is a higher probability of intervention as you may find that you've had to endure a long period of waiting to see if the prostaglandins have worked and then you may find you have a physically demanding and tiring time of very strong contractions for a long period of time. You may wish to think about pain relief options in advance and decide how you'd like to manage this. One thing to bear in mind is that if you agree for them to artificially rupture your waters, the hospital staff will want to keep to process moving at a particular rate as the risk of infection to your baby increases once the waters have broken.

Loads to think about and I wish you all the best in weighing up everything. You never know, you may go in to labour over this weekend!

I was induced early due to waters breaking prematurely. They induced me as they were worried the baby was developing an infection- this was at 36 weeks and 6 days.
I went straight to the drip so can't tell you about the pessary and obviously waters had already gone! I didn't find the drip painful, uncomfortable yes but like really really bad period pain. After 6 hours my baby was getting distressed and my cervix hasn't budged so they called it a day and went for a c section.
Unfortunately there is a higher risk of section or forceps delivery when they induce you early as a lot of the time your body isn't ready. I hope it goes well for you.

I was induced at 38 weeks with no'1, they broke my waters and then put me on the syntocinon drip, it was literally like going from 0-60 in terms of pain and contractions. I ended up with epidural and monitored (on bed) and dc1 was delivered via forceps as I couldn't feel to push, had episiotomy too. It was v fast though about 4/5hours from start to finish.

Good luck with you're induction but if they,are going to break you're waters and put you on a syntocinon that you have an idea of the pain relief options available to you before-hand.

Just to back up what has already been said but definitely be prepared to go from gentle contractions to full blown labour very quickly. I was induced at 38 weeks due to coliastasis and pre-eclampsia and was started with the pessary at 9pm. Very gentle contractions started at midnight, took a paracetamol at 3am, waters broke naturally at 7am, 8.20am doc insisted I have epidural as I wasn't coping with the pain and was only 2cm dilated, by the time the anesthetist got to me I was 'too far gone' to have an epidural - basically I was writhing around in such a state he couldn't get near me!! Started pushing at 9.30am and DD arrived 20 mins later. I ended up with a 3rd degree tear, probably due to how fast it all happened! I know some inductions take hours but be warned it can happen super fast so you might not have time to think about pain relief. Also be prepared for constant monitoring so active labour may be hard. Good luck and congrats!

Hi Revels

Just to share my experience.

I was induced with DC2 4 days over my due date due to losing my waters but no labour. Baby wasn't engaged and I was 2cm dilated (but had been for about a week). Because it was my second baby I was put straight on the drip. Absolutely no problems at all, baby out 1 hour 54 minutes later with 5 pushes. Induction worked fine for me.

As an aside, I went into labour naturally with DC1 and ended up with a forceps delivery.

Good luck, hope it all goes well.