Induction - should i be worried???? First baby

[diddle]

I am now 40+2 and at 40+12 I am being induced if nothing happens in the meantime.
I have heard a few good and bad stories about induction and I was just wondering if i should be worried and what i can expect, as i know very little about it??

please help

You may well go into labour anyway. And you don't have to have the induction, it's just on offer (although they often make it sound like an order - no idea why docs and midwives love to boss pg women around so much, but they do!). You could insist on monitoring instead to make sure baby is still Ok.

Induction can make labour more painful, because you go straight into full-blown contractions with no build up, but not everyone has that experience. And I think it can increase the likelihood of intervention, but again, that doesn't mean it will go that way for you. By 40 + 12 you may be demanding they get the baby out anyway!

There are loads of things you can try to bring on labour - most effective probably being a sweep, where a midwife inserts her fingers and 'sweeps' your cervix. But that will only work if baby is ready ie your cervix is 'ripe'. Otherwise you can try sex/oral sex/curries/driving over speebumps/booking a really nice restaurant for dinner - one of them might work!

I was induced - not because I was late, but because I wouldn't dilate after 24 hours of contractions - and found it fine. In fact, it felt quite comortingly controlled! The m/w would discuss with me whether I was up to upping the dose of syntocin every half-hour; if I felt I didn't want to, that was fine. All in all, my labour took 9 hours, didn't seem to be more painful than anyone else's, and I didn't need intervention. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Everyone's experiences are different, but I wouldn't change my labour at all - I thought it was great and went very smoothly. Good luck!

I was induced. It would have worked but for other complications. I was given a gel pessary. I think that it is most likely that the baby will come of its own accord by then. However, as someone else said, you will be begging for them to get it out by then if it hasn't .

Enjoy the last few days of child-free life, and try not to listen to too many stories. Every birth is different. I hope it comes naturally for you soon...keep us posted!

With both of my DD's I had to have my labour induced because my waters broke and I didn't have regular contractions. It's not all that great to be honest, it wasn't awful but I found that the drip made the contractions feel sort of unexpected, they just "happened" all of a sudden so it scared me a bit, I just wish someone had told me that the the first time! The second time I knew what to expect and had my gas and air ready and just focused on staying on top of them. I worked with the contractions more than the first time and my labour lasted a grand total of 3 hours & 14 minutes. So it does tend to make labour go a lot faster which is a major plus point!!!!!
Just make sure they know before they induce you that you want to feel in control of your labour.
You'll be fine though, juts think, it's an amazing thing that not everyone can do and you'll only do it a few times in your life, you've made a little person and that is what I kept telling myself all the way through.....it's soppy but true.

I was induced for both. It was ok but after my first induction I wanted to wait as long as possible the next time because I wanted to experience going into labour myself and to stay at home for a while rather than doing the whole thing in hospital. Unfortunatly I couldn't really have the monitoring as it was a long trip to the hospital and we had the first child to consider so I ended up being induced anyway. The second time was not so bad as i felt like i knew more about what was happening. The first time We were scared as they were very busy and decided that I wasn't going to have the baby that night...but I did, they were so short staffed they were not really able to take proper care of us and it was very traumatic because we were scared and nobody seemed to be around to tell us what was going on. That wasn't to do with the induction though just staffing! I'd have the monitoring if you can but in my experience they usually suggest it would be safer just to be induced and it's a suggestion that's hard to ignore!