refusing induction.

[lolee777]

Hiya, I need some advice here, getting a bit complicated. I have an induction booked next week that I will be refusing, I have any told my midwife this and she says to go, let them carry out tests then explain why you don't want to be induced. If it really gets that far (hoping for active birth with pool before then) I would rather have an elective c section. Has anyone else done this? What is likely to happen? I know you can be monitored daily instead but I'll be 42 weeks on day of induction appt surely its getting worrying for baby at this stage. Would you push for c section now? Thanks for any advice/opinions.

how come you would rather have csec than induction? Is this your 1st?

I completely get your wanting to have a csection rather than induction - all, and I mean ALL, my friends who have been induced have ended up having a horrible time and a csection so I don't get why they don't just do a csection instead of the torture first.

I don't know if you can ask for this so I'll be watching this thread with interest. Good luck!

It's my first. I have family history of small pelvic opening but have been told all the way through my pregnancy that this can't be checked which I have accepted and hence gone with the active labour option to increase chances of getting her out with gravity and no epidural. I do however have a big problem with being induced which increases chances of needing an epidural, being on my back for labour scares me and especially the chance of intense quick contractions. The use of forceps and general intervention if i have a small pelvis fills me with fear and I may still have an emergency emergency c section anyway. I know all this could have happened with normal birth with no pain relief but at least I could say I gave us both a good chance of a natural birth. I'm now over 41 weeks and just want her out safe.

Let's not scaremonger eh? All we hear about inductions is the negative experiences. Plenty of people have nice inductions with their first. It's not automatically a terrible thing.

I have at the top.of my Birth Plan NO SYNTOCYN and have dutifully informed all doctors that if they want to get this baby out before it is ready then they factor that in and if everything up to the drip fails, we skip that part and go straight to csec.

I had the drip last time and it started a spiral.of interventions, made me suffer the most unbearable pain and really was quite an overall horrific experience.

Ive yet to encounter anyone who has had systocyn and been fine with it.

I wish we had asked for a CS instead of induction. I'd strongly recommend you do that.

I had an induction with my second and it was perfectly fine, ams from memory, no different from my first natural labour.
My concern when I hear about people wanting to wait for labour to start naturally comes from my own experience when I was induced with ds. Once the placenta was delivered, the midwife was horrified at how shrivelled and "done" it was-it was starting to fail and the midwife reckoned that if I'd gone another 24 hours we were at serious risk of losing ds due to placental failure.
However this was 12 years ago and there may be ways of checking that now

I don't have direct experience, but I would have thought that if the doctors are saying the baby has to come out, and you are declining an induction, then c-section is the only option.

Just to give the other side, I've had 3 inductions. One at 37 weeks, two at 42. All syncto all normal deliveries with minimal pain relief. Infact, no pain relief for number 4.

Good luck, hope things start soon for you!

I would do the same as you. Read the NICE guidelines and go in prepared to argue as they will likely push you to 'give it a go' with induction first.

I'm watching this eagerly see how this goes for you. I really sympathise and completely agree that we hear a lot more negative recounts about inductions than positive ones. I can definitely see where you're coming from. Good luck lolee.

Hey guys, I completely sympathise with you. I was afraid to have an induction myself but I did, and I still had an amazing birth experience! Don't be put off by horror stories, I know plenty of people who have had good experiences being induced. Fingers crossed it won't come to that though!

I understand your fears, but I would suggest that there are some other steps first. Perhaps have a sweep with your mw before date for hosp visit, so that you have an idea of cervix position/favourability and if sweep had been possible you would have also had a bit of a chance to 'start things off' more naturally.

I would attend hosp visit. Remember that it's not a given, you can have a chat and say no thanks this time - I'll come back on x date or try another sweep - no one can force you to be induced. 1st babies are usually a bit tardy and you could ask consultant to scan or monitor baby just to give you both a good idea of how he/she is faring.

It seems that going from wanting an active birth in water (which I've had and was fab btw!) to csec is quite a huge leap and there's no reason to assume that induction would fail if you very overdue. These days there is very little reason for continuous monitoring unless you are high risk; you should still be able to use water for pain relief (ie bath if no pool available) if it all gets a bit 'raw' try the gas and air for a bit - you might find that takes the edge off enough; being upright and active is a a great way to birth - there's no reason why they would make you lie down.

An active birth would still be very possible with induction and remember that you can make decisions as you go along - perhaps agree with consultant that you will try pessary (3 insertions I think is the norm) but if it is the drip that worries you, say that if it gets to that stage you'd like to consider csec as you fear the pain increase.

From what I understand the pessary is a prostaglandin, which works to ripen and open your cervix, this is the same hormone that your body makes to start labour off. So it's presence would hopefully get things going! The drip is a synthetic oxytocin which is designed to strengthen weak contractions and speed up birth. Although they can both be used in induction I would see no problem in saying 'ok start me off, but if it doesn't kick off by pessary number 3 I don't want it strengthened I would rather progress to section - I think this means my body and baby aren't ready and I feel safer this way'.

This is YOUR choice, but for your 1st I would try to avoid csec as it will have an implication for any future births and if you are up for a natural active birth I would try to stay positive and aim for that - as you say, birth is unpredicatble so it might not happen that way anyway - try to keep an open mind and decide which aspects of the induction process are acceptable or not for you and lay these out for your consultant with your reasons and I am sure you will find a good way forward.

Very best of luck!

Please don't be put off by horror stories; I had a lovely syntocin induction at 37 weeks with no epidural. A great experience, I'd have that birth again every time. Obviously the choice is yours, but I wouldn't write off induction based on some horror stories.

I did exactly as you are planning to do, I rejected an induction (despite being close to 42 weeks and having raised blood pressure) and stated I would agree to a elcs but not an induction.

My reason for doing this was that my baby was measuring big (around 10 pounds) and I didn't think I could cope with the pain of an induction without having to have an epidural which would make an active birth not an option, I really felt that I wouldn't be able to birth my toddler baby if I was on my back.

In the end I went into labour naturally the night before my planned c-section. I did agree to some intervention, I had my waters broken and I had a syntocin drip to increase my contractions but I stayed mobile the entire way through, i was standing for the majority of the labour and my baby was born whilst I was sat on a birthing stool (after just 2 pushes) he was 10 pounds and I believe that me staying active and gravity allowed me to birth him vaginally.

To give another perspective, I would have given anything to try induction. My baby wasn't doing well and needed to be delivered early. C section was my worst nightmare but we were told she wouldn't be strong enough to withstand the induction process. The section was worse than I had feared. I know some people have good experiences with them but I didn't, and then had to manage having a newborn whilst recovering from surgery. I know lots of people who have had positive induction experiences.

I'm eleven weeks post section now and my lower abdomen still feels bruised. My recovery has been textbook, but it's still major surgery and you are not going to be back to normal overnight.

I was induced due to my waters breaking and while it wasn't the home water birth I had planned it certainly wasn't a bad experience and definitely wasn't comparable with having to recover from a c section.

I appreciate you making a choice about intervention, but I sobered what is happening before? Are you getting sweeps?

*wondered - not sobered. Weird.

I had the classic bad induction with first baby ending in emcs. The cs and recovery was great for me, pain minimal and completely gone after a couple of weeks. However it's a bit annoying to know that in future pregnancies I'll automatically be labelled high risk, be at an increased risk of uterine rupture, need to wait a bit longer to conceive again than we might otherwise have wanted. I totally understand why people would want to skip induction and in particular syntocin. Personally I did want to give it a shot in case it worked out smoothly as a normal delivery is generally better for future options. Now that I've had a cs I'm firmly in the camp of either natural birth or cs for me, no middle ground.

Thank you everyone really useful comments I really appreciate it. callamiadevoncreamtea I have already had one sweep on wednesday but I think I may call the midwife tomorrow morning for another and see what happens, hopefully discuss it all again with her at the time. I am actually a bit scared about how big she has got in the last week ( i dont know for sure just going by bump size) so adding to my worry as to whether she'll fit ( I am 5ft 1 and was 7 stone pre pregnancy) but again I will discuss this with midwife I guess.

Its reassuring to know I am not the only one of the opinion middle ground and intervention should/could be avoided for the best. I do suffer from anxiety issues anyway and I really want to avoid an overly and unnecessary stressful birth. I appreciate its a bit polar opposite with pool birth and csection but both options have a slightly higher potential to be calm and require less panic, I fear a bad experience will affect me more than most. I will you posted as I realise this is a popular subject. Ideally I want to prove that dodgy family traits/history can be ignored especially as I have heard small ladies can give birth to bigger babies from this site and others.

Hi lolee777, I ws induced at 40+10 with DC1 & 2. Both times I felt 'ready' to go, just needed a pessary and went naturally into labour both times. Active births-had DC1 standing up, no monitoring, examinations or hassle of any kind. No stitches either!
DC3 they changed my due date as was showing large on the scan. I have big babies, and I knew my date was right to begin with. So when they were pushing for induction at 42weeks I was reluctant, as felt baby wasn't ready yet. I was happy to have pessary, and had 3 over 2 days.
Then they wanted to move things on, break my waters, hook up a drip and have an epidural!!
I refused absolutely. Baby was happy as larry, monitored me for a bit. I was 100% confident in my decision to discharge myself, I was fed up and absolutely not up for that type of induction.
Once I got home and had a luxurious bath and sleep in my own bed, I was so relaxed....waters popped and DC3 arrived an hour later.
My point is that there are many types of induction. Educate yourself, do the research, and stick to your guns.
Good luck!

I would consider asking for pessary/gel only and moving to CS if they don't work. I had pessary and 3 x gel which did nothing. I should have cut my losses then and gone for a CS.

OK, I've dithered a lot about this over the weekend, since I'm now 41 weeks and they wanted to induce me before now. I just didn't book an appointment until Tuesday, so they've had no choice. I know that when I go in Tuesday, they'll want to induce me on Wednesday or Thursday. My obstetrician is very bossy, and I don't entirely trust her.

Me and my boyfriend have decided on this list of things for the next few days:

Go to see community midwife tomorrow and ask her to do an examination to see how viable I'd be for a) a sweep or b) induction. If it's alright for a sweep, then I'll have one if I feel alright about it (will decide at that moment).

Tuesday morning I've got acupuncture booked, followed by my consultant appointment. I'm going alone so that I can refuse to have anything physically done to me (even an examination) on the basis of needing to be with my partner/make an informed decision etc. I'll then let them book a sweep for Wednesday or Thursday. I'll also have them book an appointment for induction - ideally more towards the end of the week/the weekend/early next week.

Hopefully it won't get that far, but at the moment if I end up having to be induced then I'll agree to the pessaries but not the drip. After that the alternative is C-section. Whether I actually turn up to that appointment however is a discussion we'll have later in the week.

My big fear is hospital itself - and mostly having to have an epidural and not being able to move my legs/run away. I know this is irrational, but that's fear for you! To give you an idea of level, I have to have sedation for a dentist appointment. I've got a doula to help me with this stuff, and also have done natal hypnotherapy to help keep myself calm with the actual hospital environment. As you can imagine, having to be in hospital for any longer than strictly necessary is what I'm trying to avoid, so c-section is actually my WORST option, but I figure I'll be able to plan for that more easily than I can plan for a ramped up syntocin induced labour that has less control about it, but ends up in the big feared epidural anyway.

I get that natural labour could end in all of these things, but that scares me less because I can hopefully not have to go to hospital until the last minute. Hence the doula.

Anyway, I'm watching this thread to see how you get on!!